Gaming Madness

As you may know... I'm a gaming geek. I'm also a beer geek, a Star Wars geek, a comic book geek and a sports geek. As a self proclaimed geek of many types, I absolutely love all these wonderful "studies" and other such carefully crafted "research projects."

Much like the gal I wrote about a few weeks ago who did a "study" on how women are discriminated against at coffee shops. Ya know, the type of studies that are so profound that they have the likes of Da Vinci, Socrates, Plato and Captain Kangroo shaking in their graves.

According to Billy Bob and Bubba Joe (aka L. Rowell Huesmann, of the University of Michigan, and his colleague Brad Bushman)... "Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer."

They didn't really say that... did they?!?!?! Lung cancer? LUNG CANCER?! Who's paying these schmucks to say this - Jack Thompson?

But it gets better. They prattle off an assortment of "interesting" statistics (which is mathematicians magical version of alchemy) like: children spend an average of three hours watching television each day... more than 60 percent of TV programs contain some violence, including 40 percent showing extreme violence... Video game units are now present in 83 percent of homes with children..

They proceed to blither and blather on about how "The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively."

How much time and money did you spend on this lil study of yours?

Do you know what all that tells me? That parents let the TV and the Wii babysit their kids too much. It tells me that the human race will go out of its way to find an excuse for their behavior. It tells me that we all (well, most of us) are chasing the dragon, looking for something to fault other then ourselves. It tells me that our society is going to hell in a finally handcrafted hand basket from Louie Vuitton.

Who's the geek again?