The U.S. Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a case on California's attempt to restrict sales of violent video games to minors. Both the California lawmakers who approved the law in 2005 and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges who overturned the law in 2009 claimed that scientific research was on their side.
Lawmakers and judges aren't the only ones at odds over how to interpret research studies. Scientists who study media violence and its effects on children also are divided on what their results mean.
"It's a highly polarized research field," says Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo.
A number of studies have shown that watching a lot of violence on television or playing violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt produces aggressive tendencies in kids. Rowell Huesmann, a professor of communications and psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says that the strength of the evidence is on par with data that say smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer.
A Closer Look: Scientists divided over violent video games - latimes.com
Linear Mode
