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Study reveals violent videogames make us more relaxed

by Steven Williamson on 2 April 2008, 09:18

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Psychologist test it out theory on World of Warcraft

Although the findings of this latest study conclude the opposite to recent reports and state that playing online violent videogames may actually make us more relaxed, once again it's research that isn't worth the paper it's written on.

The findings of the study were discovered by Miss Jane Barnett and her colleagues at Middlesex University and the results will be presented at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference in Dublin today, Wednesday 2 April 2008.

The psychologists test were carried out on 292 male and female gamers aged between 12 and 83 whilst playing World of Warcraft and the 'guinea pigs' were asked to complete a questionnaire on anger, aggression and personality.

The psychologists found overall the gamers were more likely to feel calm or tired after playing – but there were differences depending on sex, age and personality.

Miss Barnett said: “There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger but this did very much depend on personality type.

“This will help us to develop a emotion and gaming questionnaire to help distinguish the type of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life.”


Seriously, this is yet another test that isn't worth the paper it's written on. Who told her to do this test on people playing World of Warcraft? It's cartoon violence! Give them a copy of Manhunt and then let's see if they're frothing at the mouth after some considerable gameplay. I'm sure even if the ManHunt test was carried out, the results would be exactly the same. The test results conclude the personalities of these particular people that were tested. As far as I'm concerned, the game they played doesn't even come into it. In this world you get angry people and you get relaxed people, that's it. When will everyone stop wasting money and time on this ridiculous debate.


HEXUS Forums :: 1 Comment

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can't help but feal you should have a nice big fat opion header on this guys, lets not confuse it with fact!

No one argues, that people of a certain disposistion who abuse narcotics can drift into a world of fantasy that they prefer to the real world, its often an argument for why people become addicted. Surely its possible for people to have similar problems with a fantasy game, that they play too much.

I wouldn't say that the violence in something like Manhunt would be worse. When watching tom + jerry, we know its not real. When watching Die hard, we know its not real. When you take a game too seriously, is it so easy to be detatched, we've all seen stories of grief conceilers dealing with people's losses in MMORPGs so, how far do these freaks go.

just my 2 cents.