Video Game Violence

This semester, in teaching video games in Media Literacy, I felt like I shortchanged the topic a little bit, since we’re running out of time and I was only able to dedicate 8 days of class (and one of them was the day before Winter Break) to the topic. Despite this shortened period, there is a massive amount of information available that could be covered to understand the importance of this topic. Over the next week, I hope to update several times to discuss several topics concerning video games that I covered in class.

Questions to ask: Do video games make kids more violent? Does it teach violent behavior? Does it teach a type of problem solving where the answer is always violence?

My belief is that on some level, this is the case. Two experts on this subject are professors at Iowa State University, Professors Douglas A. Gentile and Craig A. Anderson. They have a PDF format of a book chapter available here.

I certainly don’t want to summarize the entire 20+ pages, but it’s excellent, and I will outline a few of the points these two men bring up.

First off, they bring up several studies, including a very interesting longitudinal study that almost demonstrates that at least among children, violent video games do indeed increase a kid’s chances of being a violent kid. It uses several groups, and in doing so attacks very clearly the idea that it’s not JUST that violent kids tend to play violent video games.

They also look at this as a risk factor for violence, which to me seems like a very intelligent way to do it. They make the analogy that video game violence is a risk factor for real life violence similar to smoking being a risk factor for cancer or heart disease.

They lastly make several public policy suggestions that you may or may not agree with, but they all still very much deserve to be read.

One thing I found particularly interesting was a quote that reads: “Little research supports the idea that children aged 7 or above are more vulnerable to the effects of playing violent video games than adults.” So in short, this statement implies that 7 and 8-year-olds are just as likely to become more violent due to viewing video games as adults are. So adults are not immune. I was able to reach Professor Anderson to ask about this. When asked how this assertion was tested, whether by some type of brainwave activity testing or if it actually was a study that watched adults for aggressive behavior, Prof. Anderson stated: “The quote in question refers to experimental studies (which show
short term effects) and correlational studies that assess a whole
range of aggressive behaviors. Brain activity is not aggressive
behavior.”

When then asked if he believed violent games should be banned completely, he does state he’s unwilling to make such public policy statements, but that he does push for education about the ratings system and the harmful effects.

When I come back to post next, I'll discuss MMORPGs(Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). There's fascinating research out there about them and I'll be sure to get something posted by week's end on this topic.