In news that is certain to piss off suburban mums looking to be outraged by debates on Loose Women, a new study has discovered that playing violent video games is not linked to teen aggression.
The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Oxford, who surveyed around 1,000 of the UK's 14 and 15-year-olds, as well as their parents or guardians.
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The groups of participants were assessed and evaluated to test the theory that playing games like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty is linked to aggressive behaviour.
Published in Royal Society Open Science, the survey involved the teenagers generating reports of their recent gaming experiences, as well as 'aggressive behaviour' noted by the parents or carers.
Together with the feedback from the teens and guardians, the researchers then got to work determining whether games categorised as violent using official EU and US ratings were in any way linked to violent behaviour.
The consensus? There is no link. Of course we already knew that - but it's a good study to use to get Aunt Sharon off your back at the next family dinner.
Lead researcher Professor Andrew Przybylski, director of research at the Oxford Internet Institute, told Sky News: "What we found was that there are a lot of things that feed into aggression
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"There are some effects of gender and some people who are from different life backgrounds have higher or lower ratings, but video game play didn't really seem to matter here.
"Violent games don't seem to drive aggressive behaviour in young people. But really we should be looking at other things - maybe it is frustrations, maybe it is family or life circumstance - that we should be spending more time on."
He said it!
"The idea that violent video games drive real-world aggression is a popular one, but it hasn't tested very well over time," added Przybylski.
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"Despite interest in the topic by parents and policy-makers, the research has not demonstrated that there is cause for concern."
Speaking of which, the findings back a similar study into gaming and violence conducted by scientists at the University of York earlier this year, who carried out a series of tests with more than 3,000 participants.
In this case, they were asked to play violent games before taking part in word and image association puzzles to monitor their response. Similar to the University of Oxford's findings, the conclusion outlined that violent games don't prompt players to behave in certain ways.
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Case closed.
That said, FIFA rage is 100 percent real - although that's an entirely unique and singular entity (and is most likely only going to lead to a broken controller or a very angry letter).
Featured Image Credit: Epic GamesTopics: GAMING, Interesting