Many years ago, I regularly engaged in hand-to-hand combat with British academics who argued that there was no link between on-screen violence and children's behaviour. I argued that there was plenty of evidence of precisely such links, although the consequences were variable, and pointed to various American studies which demonstrated this. They riposted that there were no reputable studies that showed any such evidence at all. No causal links! they cried.

So I was entertained to read today of a British study published in the Lancet, which is saying that -- guess what -- children who are exposed to violence in films, on television, in video games or on the internet are at significant risk of displaying aggressive or fearful behaviour. The Times reports:

'A review of the influence of media violence shows that both “passive viewing” of television and film and “interactive viewing” of video games have substantial short-term effects on children’s emotions and increase the likelihood of aggression. Parents should treat adult media entertainment with the same caution as medications or chemicals around the home, the authors of the paper, from the University of Birmingham, conclude.

'...Professor Browne said that the causal link between such imagery and violent behaviour was statistically similar to that between passive smoking and lung cancer. He said that family and social factors were likely to affect how a child responded to televisual or computer violence.“Some children are more vulnerable than others,” he said. “If you have a child who is vulnerable then you should not allow them access to this sort of material. It is the same as knowing that your child is depressed and leaving a bottle of paracetamol around. Media violence just adds to the problem and gives them ideas about how to express their anger.” Professor Browne and his co-author, Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis, said that media violence clearly had short-term effects by arousing emotions and increasing the likelihood of “aggressive or fearful behaviour”. The influence was particularly evident in boys, they added.

So countless thousands of aggressively-primed children later, British social science is dragged kicking and screaming to admit the truth. The damage that has been done in the meantime by this electronic abuse is incalculable.

The broader issue, however, is the corruption of the academy by researchers whose work -- over a wide range of issues -- is as bent as a corkscrew by ideological agendas of one kind or another. As a result, finding out where the truth actually lies means stepping through a minefield. One can only do so, I think, by measuring what any researcher is saying by as many external verifiers as possible -- including other research, the integrity of the methodology being used, demonstrable facts on the ground, the logic or otherwise of the argument, and so on.

On the relationship between screen violence and children's behaviour, the conclusions became unequivocal in the US some time ago. It is only in Britain -- as ever, a decade or more behind the US in social trends -- where we are just catching up with the news that the electronic earth is not actually flat.