Here's one for the newspaper journalists to take a look at this morning; according to research by Middlesex University's Jane Barnett, violent videogames actually make players less angry and more relaxed.
Barnett studied just under 300 people playing World of Warcraft between the ages of 12 and 83, and found that instead of turning them into trained assassins it calmed them down. She should've put them on God of War.
"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," she said.
"This will help us to develop an emotion and gaming questionnaire to help distinguish the type of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life."
The research is set to be presented today at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference in Dublin.
Apr 2, 2008
