An update on the effects of playing violent video games

The magnitude of these effects is also somewhat alarming. The best estimate of the effect size of exposure to violent video games on aggressive behaviour is about 0.26 (Fig. 2). This is larger than the effect of condom use on decreased HIV risk, the effect of exposure to passive smoke at work and lung cancer, and the effect of calcium intake on bone mass ( [Bushman & Huesmann (2001)]). As a society, we have taken massive and expensive steps to educate the public about these smaller medical effects, but almost none to deal with the larger violent video game effects. —Craig A. Anderson

Update: This link to the table of contents page lets me download PDFs. Your mileage may vary. —An update on the effects of playing violent video games  (Journal of Adolescence)

This is not your usual hand-wringing, scare-mongering article in a parenting magazine.

I hope to see the game-playing public and games researchers consider the implications of this report seriously, and not merely shrug it off as yet another example that, where gaming is concerned, “they” don’t “get it”.

Of course, those who argue that television shows, music, or books are positively correlated with increased violence (or what have you) risk being labeled a censor. The common refrain from the gaming community — it’s the parents’ fault, not the games’ fault — is as much of a cop-out as the parent who prefers to blame games (or some other media, or a peer group).

Is it possible to have discussions of taste and ethics concerning videogames, without either moralizing recklessly, or being recklessly accused of moralizing?

Via TerraNova, where the discussion started out very good but at the moment looks like it has resulted in more of the same old same-old.

After a conversation with Mike Arnzen, I’ve been on the lookout for scholarly works that are critical of gaming and gaming culture. Here’s a good one, according to Reality Panic: “Digital Play: The
Interaction of Technology, Culture and Marketing
“.

View Comments

  • It must be term paper time!

    Seriously folks, don't use Google to do your academic research. Use your school library's database, and ask your librarian to help you find recent peer-reviewed scholarship.

    You aren't likely to find a simple answer, because there are no simple answers. That's why you do academic research -- to struggle with the hard questions that don't have easy answers, and in the process learn something.

  • this may be kinda scary some people have run away shrieking in terror when i said this so brace your self. Try to stay away from screens in general (paticularilay vilionce) and if they post it I'm "no one you know"

  • I just want to write a report will someone just tell me what to write about and whats the truth

  • Who You: See my comment, in the box below the excerpt:

    The common refrain from the gaming community -- it's the parents' fault, not the games' fault -- is as much of a cop-out as the parent who prefers to blame games...

  • This is a great site for school reports. However, I think that the blame for video game violence is not the games of the companies that produce them, but the parents who let their children play them and the children that play them. Its like building a machine gun, of course it can kill people, but a person has to pick it up and use it to do so.

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Dennis G. Jerz

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