Victorian police are attributing a rise in car thefts to the “Grand Theft Auto Generation”. But blaming video games just distracts from bigger questions of inequality and societal detachment.
- Evolutionary Biologist, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW
Biologists, along with most of the internet, have been puzzled as to why peacock spiders have such flamboyant courtship displays. So we decided to find out.
Some of the harassment women face while playing video games could be due to bully tactics employed by lower status men.
Our study found that those people - including women - who are most interested in sex play the most violent games.
Science communication and outreach can be motivated in ways other than reforming research funding bodies.
Academic papers are often cherry picked to support our prevailing views. We need to be careful to acknowledge the complexities of many issues explored by science.
You likely couldn’t outswim Alicia Coutts or Ian Thorpe, or lift half of what Damon Kelly or Seen Lee can, but I bet you could beat them at a videogame. Welcome to e-sports, the future of competitions…
Are video games societal microcosms wherein deviant behaviour flourishes and spills into “real life”? Or are they just harmless fun in which nobody really gets hurt? This endless debate usually concerns…
Step aside Olympians – the new sporting pursuit of choice may soon be professional gaming. Electronic sports (or esports) are now mainstream, drawing more than a million viewers in large tournaments and…
Although videogames are seen by many as a waste of time, one thing they do undeniably well is teach. The problem is that educational games are about as much a game as low-fat ice cream is delicious. Both…
Males will mate with anything. Well, that is the general view, one that exists because of a simple biological underpinning: females are reproductively limited by costly gestation, while males are…
Your team is decimated. You’re surrounded by zombies. And they’re closing in. Normally, you lean forward, turn off your console, step away and play again once you’ve had the opportunity to regroup. But…
With each passing year, technology percolates further into academic life. The year 2013 might look, in hindsight, like the year academic social media use went mainstream. Numbers of tweets and Facebook…
Jumping spiders are unique in the spider world as they don’t build webs - they’re active visual predators who rarely use silk. In fact, the main use we thought jumping spiders had for silk was a safety…
Is racism a matter of perspective gone wrong? And, if so, how can we fix it? A new study in Consciousness and Cognition demonstrates technology may be able to offer part of the solution: donning the skin…
Whether it’s two lions fighting over a pride or two butterflies fighting over a sunny spot, decades of nature shows have led the average watcher to conclude that bigger, stronger males win competitions…
The debate around videogames and violence is getting seriously out of control – not least in the US. Just take this recent homepage on The Huffington Post: Hyperbole aside, videogames are (once again…
Here’s an idea for improving the health of our children: let them play more videogames. Obesity has numerous health risks and it is most frightening in children as early learned behaviours will last throughout…
Of all violent videogames, first-person shooters are viewed as the biggest problem because of the perspective taken during gaming: the first-person standpoint makes it seem as if the player is performing…
Just like rock music in the 1950s, Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s, and death metal in the 1990s, videogaming has been demonised by parent groups. For decades, gamers were portrayed as obese social…
Things have changed. Much of the time we used to spend chatting with friends or strangers in person is now spent tweeting, texting or updating our Facebook status. Although technology allows us to rapidly…
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