A U.K. academic says there is little evidence that violent video games -- think Grand Theft Auto IV -- make players more aggressive in real life.

Patrick Kierkegaard from the University of Essex explains in the  International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry that you could draw a conclusion by looking at past research that the games are pretty harmless. While evidence from brain scans has shown that the parts of gamers' brains associated with aggression do become more active while playing games, Kierkegaard said he found no link between real-world violence statistics and the emergence of video games.

"Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use. “For example, in 2005, there were 1,360,088 violent crimes reported in the USA compared with 1,423,677 the year before," he says. "With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence."

Kierkegaard, who points out that there's no evidence to suggest violent videogames would be any more likely to make someone aggressive than violent books, does say more research is needed in this area since existing research is inconclusive on these matters.

Of course that hasn't stopped some countries from using common sense and putting measures in place to prevent youngsters from getting their mitts on the most graphic of games. 

Kierkegaard, by the way, also treats International Journal of Liability and Scientific Equiry readers to another article in the latest issue. It's title:  Is the internet a sad, depressing world?