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http://hdl.handle.net/2451/28497
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| Title: | Video Games and Violent Crime |
| Authors: | Ward, Michael - University of Texas at Arlington |
| Keywords: | Video Games, Violence, Crime |
| Issue Date: | 2007 |
| Series/Report no.: | NET Institute Working Paper;07-18 |
| Abstract: | Psychology studies of the effects of playing video games have found
emotional responses and physical reactions associated with reinforced
violent and anti-social attitudes. It is not clear, however, whether
these markers are associated with increases in one's preferences for
anti-social behaviors or whether virtual behaviors act to partially sate
one's desire for actual antisocial behaviors. Violent or criminal
behaviors in the virtual world and in the physical world could plausibly
be either complements or substitutes. A finding of one versus the other
would have diametrically opposing policy implications. I study the
incidence of criminal activity as related to a proxy for increased
gaming, the number of game stores, from a panel of US counties from 1994
to 2004. With fixed county and year effects, I can examine if changes
relative increases in gaming in an area are associated with relative
increases or decreases in criminal activity. For six of eight categories
of crime, more game stores are associated with significant declines in
crime rates. Proxies for other leisure activities, sports and movie
viewing, do not have a similar effect. For confirmation, I also find
that mortality rates, especially mortality rates stemming from injuries,
also are negatively related to the number of game stores. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/28497 |
| Appears in Collections: | NET Institute Working Papers Series
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