Don't Have a Cow, Man

I echo Leonardo's call to ban the funding of public health studies because they're the leading cause of government meddling. The April 2006 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine has a study purporting to show that playing violent video games leads to negative health attitudes and behaviors.

Researchers Sonya Brady at the University of California at San Francisco and Karen Matthews of the University of Pittsburgh reported that violent gaming raised blood pressure and led to uncooperative behavior and permissive attitudes toward violence, alcohol use, marijuana use, and unsafe sex practices.

According to the study's abstract, "men randomly assigned to play Grand Theft Auto III exhibited greater increases in diastolic blood pressure from a baseline rest period to game play, greater negative affect, more permissive attitudes toward using alcohol and marijuana, and more uncooperative behavior in comparison with men randomly assigned to play The Simpsons." The researchers can eat my shorts.

I hope to do a reverse study. Does drinking and smoking marijuana make you more likely to play video games? If Baylen lets me use his Playstation I will find out.