Do video games make kids aggressive? Has violence increased overall with the rise of gaming? These are questions that everyone has asked themselves at some point, parent or not. There are a lot of opinions circulating, for and against, so let’s have a look at how plausible the statement is in reality and according to science.
I am a living example myself – I’ve played far more games of all kinds throughout my childhood and am not even remotely violent – I struggle to swat a fly! But I am aware that could be an accident. There have been many experiments and researches done on the topic. Recently, a study was conducted in Bath University, Bristol Uni and UCL with over 2900 kids. The results are yet again not very clear – there is none or very insignificant relation between kids exposed to games starting from the age of 8-9 and their behavior – violence, attention disorders and depressions at later age. This is by far not a first – there has been tens and tens of studies supporting each side of the argument, making it impossible to state for sure what the truth is. One thing is for sure – all this suggests that the issue is far more complex than a just yes/no answer.
To quote the research mentioned above results “A sensitivity analysis comparing those who play competitive games to those who play shoot-em-ups found weak evidence supporting the hypothesis that it is violence rather than competitiveness that is associated with conduct disorder. However, this analysis was underpowered, and we cannot rule out the possibility that increasing levels of competition in games may be just as likely to account for the observed associations as violent content. Overall game exposure as indicated by number of games in a household was not related to conduct disorder, nor was any association found between shoot-em-up video game use and depression.”
Another study on the topic that I found quite fascinating was published in the Journal of Communication. It was conducted by psychologist Christopher Ferguson and analysed the relation between the violent content of the most commonly popular games from 1996 to 2011 and the behaviour of youth. Much to the disappointment of many anti-gamers, the study found that during the time period in question not only there was no increase, but in fact “youth violence dropped precipitously”. The psychologist rightly concluded that there is simply more attention given to the issue in the media so this creates that misconception in the common opinion. He also states that people should in fact focus on more important and real issues – like poverty, education and mental health, instead of taking the focus away from those by creating scandals around something that has never been proven scientifically to be an issue.
While there is still no concrete evidence on one side of the argument nor another, I completely agree with Mr. Ferguson’s last statement, so play on and keep checking on me, I will be updating you on this and other gaming topics in due time!