Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Lestat Instead of checking how many violent young murderers played videogames, they should check how many young people that play videogames become violent young murderers. Then we would have something to discuss.
This is like saying: all psychopathic murderers drive cars, so cars turn you into a psychopathic murderer. |
Yeah - I agree. It always strike me as odd when they draw this comparison when you think of the fact that millions of kids play videogames but doesn't turn out to be violent people based on it. But this aspect is often overlooked (I wonder why) in such situations.
Uhh - these young violent teens have played videogames, that must be why they are violent. But the honorstudents might have played as well - is that the reason why they are honorstudents?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Aegis The thing is, though, that regardless if you look at criminals who played violent games, as opposed to kids playing violent games become criminals, the numbers will essentially be the same. The only difference will lie in the fact because you're looking at a demographic, before they become criminals (I'm sure you know the inference I am making), you'll see the ratio of criminal tendencies to non-criminal tendencies, which you might not see otherwise if you were to simply look at the criminals.
<snip> |
I think you are misunderstanding him, Aegis.
He isn't saying you need to look at the kids who became criminal, before they actually became criminal, and see if they played videogames.
But you need to look at *every* kid (including thoese who doesn't turn out to be criminals) who plays videogames and seeing how large a percentage of them becomes criminal. Not just how many criminals have played videogames. That is where the huge fault is in these comparisons. This will never yeild the same numbers (or close to), because the statistical sample (kids playing games) is going to be so much larger with a relative smaller properbility (turning criminal), as opposed to a smaller sample (criminals) who played videogames (large properbility) as kids. Statistically thoese two are very different.
It is like Lestat says, many of these kids likely have something else in comparison - they like penautbutter - but that doens't mean everybody who likes it turns out to be criminals.
Most kids these days plays videogames, and if they all (or most) turns out to be criminal, then there might be a link.