i love the media

Particularly the news media and particularly reporting research findings.

Like this story from the Australian IT section today. Under the headline "Violent Video Games OK for boys" runs the secondary headline "Boys who don't play games are 'at increased risk'".

Reading that, I got the impression that it was the lack of violent video games which led boys to be at increased risk of going off the rails. But if you read the story, particularly right to the very end, the researchers don't find that it's the violence or otherwise in the video games which causes the increased risk. They find that boys who don't play violent video games are considered a bit weird by their peers. It's those 'weird' boys, the social outcasts, who are at risk of going off the rails.

Which means that the increased risk has nothing to do with video games, violent or not. It has to do with not fitting in to the group.

"Social outcasts at increased risk of not fitting in to societal norms" isn't such a catchy headline.