Bias is an interesting concept.

There's an interesting bit of research by Prof. Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M International University, which states that there is no link whatsoever between Violent games and school shootings.

I quote from it:

'As for the news media, it has long been recognised that negative news... �sell� better than do positive news... As for social scientists, it has been observed that a small group of researchers have been most vocal in promoting the anti-game message... oftentimes ignoring research from other researchers, or failing to disclose problems with their own research...'

No doubt there are a whole bunch of people here who will immediately assume that this report is biased because it says something they don't want to hear.

No matter like this is ever black and white, and trying to say simply 'Video Games are Bad in every way' is bias in and of itself.

@Jason

Your post wasn't up when I posted mine, spooky how we both mentioned bias, just wanted you to know that wasn't aimed at you.

With regards to your post.

Exactly, it's all about the numbers and how they are interpreted and used. As I stated earlier about Keith Bakker, what he originally thought of as an addiction is looking more and more like an escape from social and family problems, the low self-esteem and social problems led to the Game playing, not the opposite.

I don't see this report so much biased (it even states that parents' shouldn't rush out and remove Video Games), but I think there's some lack of investigation over cause and effect and which is which.

IMO, I don't think games can really affect how a person behave, to me its more about their own self control and their environment they were brought up in. I know many people(including me) who play games and we all live a successful life( no drugs, no criminal record, and a good social life also). In fact, games had a positive effect on us, I learn many things that help me benefit in class, for example stuff related to engineering. In fact some people I know who aren't that bright and cause trouble don't really know much about games. And how about those puzzle games, they prove to be beneficial and about those violent games that cause kids to act out, the fault lies with the parent for disregarding the rating. Well the only negative effect games have is well it made me wear glasses lol but of course this is my opinion

I agree with DGY, I'd be more afraid of vision issues than anything else. I too have begun to need glasses after more than a decade of computer use.

I have a good friend who is one of those sterotypical World of Warcraft geeks. He admits he has no time for anything else since he has been playing 8+ hours a day for years now, he even took a semester off of college just to play 24/7. I've grown up with this guy since elementary school and I can tell you he has ALWAYS been like that and he wasnt allowed to touch video games till he was 16. The only difference was that instead of Pwning N00bs on WOW he was throwing kids lunches at them and pushing people.

"Participants included 813 undergraduate students (500 young women, 313 young men, M age = 20, SD = 1.87) who were mainly European American (79%), unmarried (100%) and living outside their parents� home (90%)"

So the study consisted mainly of young white college students...could you have pigeon holed this study any more???

Nuclear Geek details an exchange with BYU's Laura Walker. The professor, who previously told the Deseret News, "Everything we found associated with video games came out negative," attempted to clarify her remarks and indulged in a bit of the media blame game:

One study does not claim to be representative of all gamers, and we were in no way making that claim. We are not even claiming generalizability to the 18-25 age group, this is just what we found in our sample.
Media has a way of really spinning these stories that are not always accurate. However, in our study, we did find that video game use was related to only negative behaviors for students this age. Does that mean this applies to all gamers? No. Does that mean video game use causes these outcomes? Certainly not. It is possible that video game use could be positive in a number of ways, but given the variables we measured in our study, it was related to only negative outcomes...

I think it is safe to say that anything that is extreme is bad, i.e. playing video games everyday for hours at a time, watching TV for hours on end, or anything and I do mean ANYTHING! regulate yourself and your children, is that too much to ask. also some games like Metal Gear are not even meant for ADULTS, let's be serious! It's ridiculous.

Haha, I am an avid gamer, I love gaming and I can tell you that multi-player games are much better than a solo game, all the talk about anti-sociality may be true, but I believe that some can gain great bonding experiances as placed in this article.
I am in a guild of great friends and the leader and his wife both play, and they have a great social life, with me, and others perhaps its the MMORPGS that should be better monitered to decide what constitutes as negative sociality.

I love how the people who immediately say how "video games are bad" are the ones who don't play it that much, or are the ones who play it in excess. I'm a female gamer. I have a PSP, a Wii, and at my parents house, we have several other types of consoles. Yet my parents are in a loving relationship, my brother is a social butterfly (And he's the one who plays these games the most) and my sister is an outstanding third grader who's very intelligent for her age. I believe there's no real evidence for or against video game playing, as, GUESS WHAT!? It effects different people different ways. What people choose to do with their time is up to them, and what they choose to do with the information is also their choice. I honestly, however, think that this study is biased, and completely excluded some facts.

Our family eats dinner together, has talks, even plays some games together, and we're never stronger than when we're doing a great activity like that. Video games don't ruin lives. Ignorant people do.