By: Jon tritley
Video Games made their introduction into many American households in the early 70s. The very first mass-produced video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, featured mostly innocent games, such as Table Tennis and Simon Says. The early generations of consoles had stark graphical limitations that made it difficult to portray reality. In other words, it was difficult to create video games that resembled real life because of the limitations of the technology – black and white, limited number of pixels – very difficult to make real-life people and objects with so little work with. As video games consoles became more sophisticated, so too did the subject matter. Games today involve a myriad of different genres, from racing, to adventure, to a fully simulated battlefield that looks, acts, and feels like real war.
Since video games have become more sophisticated, developers have been able to create more life-like video games that simulated real life, including video games that involve a grotesque amount of violent acts. With game so lifelike, it almost seems like you can carry out violent acts vicariously through them. The amount of violence in video games has prompted many psychologists throughout the years to study video games and whether or not they have a propensity to induce gamers toward violent acts.
The Research
According to this TED talk by cognitive researcher Daphne Bavelier, playing video games has its advantages. She claims that gamers have better vision – a better ability to assess minor details in one’s visual field and well as greater depth perception. Additionally, gamers are quicker to resolve visual conflicts, track objects in your visual field, rotate objects in your mind, and switch cognitive tasks much more fluidly and easily. Other research tends to back up Dr. Bavelier’s claim that video games can have positive effects, such as Adachi and Willoughby’s (2012) review of the literature where they point out that gamers have to overcome adversity, challenges, and gain the ability to adopt new strategies to overcome obstacles. According to these researchers, playing video games seem to have great benefits – but is all sunshine and rainbows? Not according to the research on playing violent video games and its effects on aggression.
The General Aggression Model (Anderson & Bushman, 2002) would predict that experiencing even simulations of aggression would produce an increase in aggression. But is that realistically the case? When Sestir and Batholow (2010) looked at the outcomes of playing violent or nonviolent video games, they found that aggressive thoughts were more readily accessible immediately following a session of violent video gaming; however, those results disappeared when measured again after a mere 15 minutes. Furthermore, their research suggests that playing nonviolent video games has positive, prosocial effects. A limitation of this study seems to be that they did not account for whether the participant was a gamer or not - would those that are regularly exposed to hours of weekly violent video game playing be more prone to aggression? DeLisi et al. (2012) might provide some answers to this question. Although they were looking at juvenile offenders housed in correctional facilities, they indeed found a positive correlational relationship between juvenile delinquency and how immersed they were with violent videos (years playing video games, how often they play them per week, etc.). Taken together, these two studies seems to suggest that there is some sort of relationship between violent video games and aggression; however, these studies are only correlational. They do not suggest that one causes the other and does not account for the multitude of confounding variables that are at play.
Since there are observable behavioral changes in regard to violent games and aggression, would it follow that there are observable physiological changes in the brain? Engelhardt et al. (2011) found a neurological process that takes place in relation to violent video games. Specifically, those that are exposed to violent video games experience a desensitization to violent acts (i.e., we “get used” to being exposed to violent acts) when measuring brain activity. In other words, playing violent videos resulted in lower brain activity when exposed to violent acts. Overall, this study suggests that violent videos games may normalize aggression.
Studies discussed so far have only looked at the relationship in relatively short, snapshot-like time frames. Willoughby et al. (2011) surveyed adolescents every year throughout their time in high school (grade 9 to grade 12). The results of this study confirmed what the previous studies found – a link between violent video games and aggression. Students that reported high violent video gaming time also reported higher aggression scores. This link was found to be consistent over time – across all four years of their high school experience. However, Elson and Ferguson (2014) decided to look across all research throughout the last 25 years on video games and found that the evidence is mixed and ambiguous – some research confirms links while other research denies it. These researchers feel that the debate has been lost in a state of moral panic and media over-sensitization.
Conclusion
Playing video games seem to have some benefits, particularly in regard to one’s vision and certain instances of problem solving. However, some lines of research have indicated a link between playing violent videos games and aggression. Other researchers have claimed that this link is unsubstantiated – the results are mixed and the media is to blame for creating a state of panic as well as using video games as a scapegoat for aggressive behavior. Overall, current research suggests positives for playing video games, while the negative aspects are currently unsubstantiated. If anyone tells you that video games are bad for you, are a waste of time, do not contribute to anything, etc. – you can feel safe knowing that they are most likely wrong.
References
- Adachi, P. J., & Willoughby, T. (2012). Do video games promote positive youth development? Journal of Adolescent Research, 28(2), 155-165.
- Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51.
- Delisi, M., Vaughn, M. G., Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., & Shook, J. J. (2012) Violent video games, delinquency, and youth violence: New evidence. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 11(2), 132-142.
- Elson, M., & Ferguson, C. J. (2014). Twenty-five years of research on violence in digital games and aggression: Empirical evidence, perspectives, and a debate gone astray. European Psychologist, 19, 33-46.
- Engelhardt, C. R., Bartholow, B. D., Kerr, G. T., & Bushman, B. J. (2011). This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 1033-1036.
- Sestir, M. A., & Bartholow, B. D. (2010). Violent and nonviolent video games produce opposing effects on aggressive and prosocial outcomes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 934-942.
- Willoughby, T., Adachi, P. J., & Good (2012). A longitudinal study of the association between violent video game play and aggression among adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 48(4), 1044-1057.