Patrick M. Markey

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is witty and enjoyable to read, without sacrificing good research, references and insights. It is a lovely consolidation of decades of good (and bad) research into media violence and video game violence, and solidly debunks a lot of myths around violent video games in general. It is tremendously necessary, especially in the new wave of media violence research. One thing I will point out is that it is of course very US focused, with of course a chapter deducated to US mass school shooters - this is obviously a US epidemic that does need to be looked at, but is less relevant to those of us in other countries who have violent video games. It was still very interesting to read the statistics around mass shooters (er, hint: they are less likely to play violent video games).… (mehr)

Well researched book about video games and the history of people claiming that it is causing all sort of societies ills. Great resource if you want to shut down that relative at Thanksgiving who is going off about "The Nintendos making kids violent". The downside to this is that I think this book is about 10 years too late. I haven't seen anything in the news about games causing violence (I think we have moved on to religion).

I would recommend this book to anyone, particularly parents of kids who are starting to explore video games, to alleviate any fears that they might have that they are causing their kids harm. There are specific chapters that deal with video game addiction, social aspects of games, and desensitization to violence which all seem to be the biggest fears parents have.… (mehr)

While the title implies that the book might be a hard rebuff against those who argue about the violent and detrimental nature of video games, Ferguson and Markey present a balanced portrayal of the arguments, studies, and media representation for and against video games, written for the lay audience.

The discussion is informative and accessible. I found the beginning somewhat slow, but much of the opening information I was already familiar with, but it was very interesting to see the details behind some of the studies such as just what what behaviors were examine and what reactions were judged, along with the societal context around them.

The book (my copy) looks larger than it really is because there is at least a chapter worth of notes as well as an index which make it useful for research purposes. In keeping with the more casual written approach, there is also a "strategy guide" with tips for parents and such on approaching the subject with their kids if they remain concerned.… (mehr)