[Giganticface]

Originally Posted by Sculpt

I care about the conclusions. Ya say you spent time debunking research and/or it's conclusions in college. But you don't mention debunking any of the research on this subject.

Sure, any research or conclusion could be wrong. Who's doing the study, do they have an ax to grind? I take that for granted. But it's just sloppy thinking to assume all research we initially disagree with is wrong, without analyzing it.

There's research demonstrating a table top is mostly empty space (physics). I've pounded on the table. Without analyzing the research, it sure seems like bunk. But it doesn't mean it is bunk.

Here's some of the research. If you want to grab one and analyse it, I'd be happy to hear your findings.
http://www.lionlamb.org/mediaviolencefactsheet.pdf
http://lionlamb.org/research.html

I won't be doing any debunking. My days of academia are long past and it's not something that can be done in a matter of minutes or even hours. However, looking at the lionlamb.org research page, I notice that it's a combination of interest-driven opinion statements, fact sheets, articles not published in accredited scientific journals, and some articles that are (I suspect) accredited.

Looking into the first article that I believe is accredited ( "The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance", published in the Journal of Adolescence -- I'll ask my wife if it's accredited, she is an occupational therapist with a Masters in Child Psychology ), skimming the research and jumping to the findings, the conclusions state:

That youth who are more hostile also play more violent video games raises questions of causality. Are young adolescents more hostile and aggressive because they expose themselves to media violence, or do previously hostile adolescents prefer violent media? Due to the correlational nature of this study, we cannot answer this question directly.

And...

It is important to note, however, that this study is limited by its correlational nature. Inferences about causal direction should be viewed with caution.

So, without evaluating the quality of the data and the actual statistical analysis, I'll assume the article does a good job of establishing a correlation between violent video game play and acts of aggression, but does not establish the conclusion that one causes the other. I suspect many of the other actually scientific papers will have similar language clarifying their conclusions.

Listen, I'm not proposing that exposing children to violent entertainment is a good thing. I'm not really sure how you managed to migrate this conversation from Lee's "God told them to kill" quip, to a debate over whether we should let children watch an extreme exploitation film about torture. We're all adults here, or close enough. It's the wrong forum to pass judgement on grown ass people who enjoy watching violence for entertainment. This is a horror forum, remember? Not Lion and the Lamb dot org.