Violent video games linked to child aggression

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PeterCH

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Kids in both the U.S. and Japan who reported playing lots of violent video games had more aggressive behavior months later than their peers who did not, according to the study, which appears in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers specifically tried to get to the root of the chicken-or-egg problem -- do children become more aggressive after playing video games or are aggressive kids more attracted to violent videos?

It's a murky -- and controversial -- issue. Many studies have linked violence in TV shows and video games to violent behavior. But when states have tried to keep under-18 kids from playing games rated "M" for mature, the proposed restrictions have often been challenged successfully in court.

In the new study, Dr. Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., of Iowa State University in Ames, and his colleagues looked at how children and teen's video game habits at one time point related to their behavior three to six months later.

The study included three groups of kids: 181 Japanese students ages 12 to 15; 1,050 Japanese students aged 13 to 18; and 364 U.S. kids ages 9 to 12.

The U.S. children listed their three favorite games and how often they played them. In the younger Japanese group, the researchers looked at how often the children played five different violent video game genres (fighting action, shooting, adventure, among others); in the older group they gauged the violence in the kids' favorite game genres and the time they spent playing them each week.

Japanese children rated their own behavior in terms of physical aggression, such as hitting, kicking or getting into fights with other kids; the U.S. children rated themselves too, but the researchers took into account reports from their peers and teachers as well.

In every group, children who were exposed to more video game violence did become more aggressive over time than their peers who had less exposure. This was true even after the researchers took into account how aggressive the children were at the beginning of the study -- a strong predictor of future bad behavior.

The findings are "pretty good evidence" that violent video games do indeed cause aggressive behavior, says Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor.

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More here:

http://www.printthis.clickability.c...iolent.video.kids/index.html&partnerID=212106
 
PeterCH said:
Arguably, its a Current Affairs issue no, and not a pure IT issue. :)
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It is IMO more of an IT issue due to the gaming content, and not a 'current' affair issue per se. Everything posted on this forum is current at the time of posting or was current at some or other time... :p

In any case, it does not need 2 Threads - You should have RBP'ed the other thread and asked the mods to move it. ;)
 
phenom said:
GranTurismo? anyone?

Somewhere i've read that Finland has the worlds most we+ll educated children, that they start school at 7, go to school at 10am, have casual clothes, and no school sports, they listen to hiphop, heavy metal, play xbox and the like.
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ld13 posted a link to the paper on the original posting which I inadvertedly duplicated. Thanks to ld13. They mention:

This study adds 2 critical pieces of evidence on the
issue of the potential aggression-enhancing effects of
violent video games. First, it confirms that habitually
playing violent video games leads to increases in physical
aggression some months later in children and
adolescents, relative to those who do not play violent
video games. Second, it demonstrates that such longitudinal
effects occur in highly individualistic cultures
with high societal levels of physical aggression
and violence (the United States), and in more collectivistic
cultures with low levels of physical aggression
and violence. That both cultures yielded significant
longitudinal effects of approximately the same magnitude
illustrates the power of violent video games to
affect children’s developmental trajectories in a harmful
way. These findings also further suggest that common
social learning processes underlie media violence
effects across cultures, and contradict another popular
alternative hypothesis: that only highly aggressive
children (either by nature, culture, or other socialization
factors) will become more aggressive if repeatedly
exposed to violent video games.
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So yeah, Finnish kids would fit in with the more collectivist,
less violent lot. In this paper they chose two completely
divergent societal groupings, although the US sample size
seems quite small. My stats are bad, I wonder if the sample
size is significant though. Anyway, there it is.
 
We're in South Africa. A disturbed kid going on a shooting rampage will be a welcome distraction from the savage behaviour of criminals here. Obviously I'm not serious, but at least I can understand the reasons why disturbed kids do what they do.

On a daily basis we hear of terrible incidents. What kind of 'creature' would rape a women in front of her husband and kids. Incidently, in movies, if such graphic and violent behaviour are shown, it's usually by in-bred/nuclear mutated freaks - the hills have eyes. Makes we wonder whether these savages were born or bred. I hate them so much. Can I kill them? Please. Can I?
 
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I think it's a crock of *****. My 15 yr old son has played shooting games since he was 3 (Doom 1) and plays online CoD4 etc and is one of the least aggressive people I know. Sometimes I wish he'd get more aggressive so he's not always trying to sidestep the aggressive kids.
 
Gazer said:
I think it's a crock of *****. My 15 yr old son has played shooting games since he was 3 (Doom 1) and plays online CoD4 etc and is one of the least aggressive people I know. Sometimes I wish he'd get more aggressive so he's not always trying to sidestep the aggressive kids.
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It's always the quiet ones :D

But I agree, it is a load of bull. Considering all the LAN, blood sucking , axe wielding, decapitating crazed gamers I know: none are violent. And thats a good what, 1-300 + ratio so far and climbing.
 
Gazer said:
I think it's a crock of *****. My 15 yr old son has played shooting games since he was 3 (Doom 1) and plays online CoD4 etc and is one of the least aggressive people I know. Sometimes I wish he'd get more aggressive so he's not always trying to sidestep the aggressive kids.
Click to expand...

I'm with you - sounds like a load of cr@p to me. My boy is a big shooting game player ( also brought up on Doom LOL! ) and he is one seriously placid boy who takes everything in his stride with good humour. I think these games give an outlet for any aggression that might be there.

I'm also not sure that a bit of aggression is "harmful" - rather, perhaps, necessary in our society. I must prod my boy a bit I think!
 
This study still fails to demonstrate any causal link. Teachers and peers are very poor sources of information. Teachers usually have no idea what goes on at home or on the playground and peers just lie. "Yeah Johnny gets into lots of fights. Oh, did I mention my friends and bully him?" And self-reporting is just as bad.
 
It's really funny. Some studies claims the opposite. So all these "studies" are clearly flawed / have an agenda.
 
Yeah, blame it all on gaming. All the violence on TV, even in cartoons, has got nothing to do with it... :rolleyes:
 
How many of those violent kids have adult supervision while playing, or even talked with their parents about the game?
 
Sheesh ... this has been going on for decades already - I wish they would give it a rest - I've been playing games since the days of Doom as well ... and I've never felt the urge to kill people ... I get most of those urges just by spending time in the company of my collegues. They should investigate that.

Oh ... please ignore this shotgun on my desk ... I have no idea how that got there 0.o

Last point ... how many boys go through school without getting into at least one brawl ...?
 
shadowfox said:
Sheesh ... this has been going on for decades already - I wish they would give it a rest - I've been playing games since the days of Doom as well ... and I've never felt the urge to kill people ... I get most of those urges just by spending time in the company of my collegues. They should investigate that.

Oh ... please ignore this shotgun on my desk ... I have no idea how that got there 0.o

Last point ... how many boys go through school without getting into at least one brawl ...?
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LOL You are right. When I sit there playing the game I'm enjoying myself and having fun, no murderous thoughts or urges.... But put me with a lot of people and it isn't long before I het these urges to strangle somebody:rolleyes:
 
rwenzori said:
I'm with you - sounds like a load of cr@p to me. My boy is a big shooting game player ( also brought up on Doom LOL! ) and he is one seriously placid boy who takes everything in his stride with good humour. I think these games give an outlet for any aggression that might be there.

I'm also not sure that a bit of aggression is "harmful" - rather, perhaps, necessary in our society. I must prod my boy a bit I think!
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:eek:

All that sick violence and aggression. Shouldn't he play The Sims instead

:D
 
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