Violence And Video Games
As the level of violence in video games has increased, so has concern for the effects on those who play – especially those who play a lot. Can aggressive and violent behavior be attributed to violence in video games? Or do those who play already have violent tendencies which draw them to violent games? It´s a type of “chicken or the egg” debate that has strong advocates on both sides.
Though video games made their appearance in the 1970s, it wasn´t until systems like the Sony PlayStation were released in the 1980s that violence became an issue. Along with these more sophisticated systems came the ability to make graphics more lifelike. The more lifelike they´ve become, the more interest there has been in the correlation between violent games and violent behavior.
One of the primary concerns with violence in video games is that gaming is not passive. In order to play and win, the player has to be the aggressor. Rather than watching violence, as he might do on television, he´s committing the violent acts. Most researchers acknowledge that this kind of active participation affects a person´s thought patterns, at least in the short term.
Another factor that concerns both researchers and parents is that violence in video games is often rewarded rather than punished. In army and sniper games, players “level up” based in part on how many people they kill. If played frequently enough, games like this can skew a young person´s perception of violence and its consequences. The games are also repetitive and based on a rewards system. Repetition and rewards are primary components of classical conditioning, a proven psychological concept in which behavioral learning takes place as a result of rewarding (or punishing) particular behaviors. Also, since the brains of children and teens are still developing, they would, in theory, be even more susceptible to this type of “training.”
Before looking at the science, it’s worth taking a moment to think about how scientists might arrive at something like a conclusive answer: By taking several tens of thousands of people, from children on up to adults, dividing them into groups with comparable socioeconomic, genomic, and behavioral profiles, setting them to play first-person shooters with varying amounts of regularity, then following them for years, routinely conducting psychological tests and tracking their real-world behaviors.
It would be an extremely revealing experiment. It’s also one that nobody has carried out, nor will they. The logistical challenges would be enormous—and even it was possible, it would be hugely unethical, involving the deliberate exposure of potentially vulnerable people to something that might hurt them and others.
In 2002, researchers Anderson and Bushman developed the General Aggression Model (GAM). GAM attempts to explain the complex relationship between violent video games and aggressive gamers. The GAM takes some (though not all) of the heat off video games by acknowledging that a gamer´s personality plays into how he is affected by violence. Anderson and Bushman refer to three internal facets – thoughts, feelings, and physiological responses – that determine how a person interprets aggressive behavior. Some people´s responses are naturally more hostile, making them predisposed to respond more aggressively to violent video games. Short-term effects were easily identified in the GAM; the most prominent being that violent games change the way gamers interpret and respond to aggressive acts. Even those who aren´t predisposed to aggression respond with increased hostility after playing a violent video game. The game becomes what´s called a “situational variable” which changes the perception of and reaction to aggressive behavior. To Bushman, video games aren’t likely to be the sole source of violence, but an amplifier. Yet the studies that Bushman and colleagues cite tend not to answer a key question: Does game-induced aggressiveness persist? Does it become a hard-wired way of being in the world, or does it dissipate in a few minutes or hours?
In science, correlation doesn´t imply causation. A relationship between virtual aggression and real-life aggression isn´t necessarily one of cause and effect. Maybe bullies in real life also enjoy beingbullies in virtual life, so they play violent video games.
To date, all lawsuits against video game companies for distributing violent content have been thrown out. The small test groups and lack of long-term studies casts a shadow on the body of evidence against violent video games. Many people believe video games offer no more exposure to violence than television shows featuring murder, not to mention movies that graphically depictserial killers and war.
Some experts point to the fact that while violent video game sales are on the rise, violent crimerates in the United States are going down.
The controversy is far from over. But concern over the potential anti-social effects of violent games isn´t affecting.
Though long-term effects haven´t been clinically documented, one need only look at the way video game violence has progressively increased over the past two decades to get a sense of potential long-term effects. Parents would be wise to monitor the amount of time their kids spend gaming and watch closely for any negative effects.
