A new meta-analysis of 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide 'proves conclusively' that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids, say researchers from Iowa State University and the City University of New York.
The team used meta-analytic procedures -- the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. The research also included new longitudinal data which provided further confirmation that playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes.
The analysis, published in Psychological Bulletin, found that violent video game effects are significant in both Eastern and Western cultures, in males and females, and in all age groups. Although there are good theoretical reasons to expect the long-term harmful effects to be higher in younger, pre-teen youths, there was only weak evidence of such age effects.
"These are not huge effects -- not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang," said Said Iowa State Psychologist Craig Anderson. "But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes. And it's a risk factor that's easy for an individual parent to deal with -- at least, easier than changing most other known risk factors for aggression and violence, such as poverty or one's genetic structure."
The study has important implications for public policy debates, including development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce the harmful effects of playing violent video games, the authors say.
"From a public policy standpoint, it's time to get off the question of, 'Are there real and serious effects?' That's been answered and answered repeatedly," . "It's now time to move on to a more constructive question like, 'How do we make it easier for parents -- within the limits of culture, society and law -- to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?'"
The team used meta-analytic procedures -- the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. The research also included new longitudinal data which provided further confirmation that playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes.
The analysis, published in Psychological Bulletin, found that violent video game effects are significant in both Eastern and Western cultures, in males and females, and in all age groups. Although there are good theoretical reasons to expect the long-term harmful effects to be higher in younger, pre-teen youths, there was only weak evidence of such age effects.
"These are not huge effects -- not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang," said Said Iowa State Psychologist Craig Anderson. "But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes. And it's a risk factor that's easy for an individual parent to deal with -- at least, easier than changing most other known risk factors for aggression and violence, such as poverty or one's genetic structure."
The study has important implications for public policy debates, including development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce the harmful effects of playing violent video games, the authors say.
"From a public policy standpoint, it's time to get off the question of, 'Are there real and serious effects?' That's been answered and answered repeatedly," . "It's now time to move on to a more constructive question like, 'How do we make it easier for parents -- within the limits of culture, society and law -- to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?'"
I have not read this study yet, but if it is like the others that I have, it will be rife with inaccuracies, flawed data and intentional and unintentional misrepresentations. The agenda against videos games is the same as it was against Jonny Quest and the slew of Saturday morning action cartoons that followed in its wake in the 1960s but were curtailed by the mid 70s for some time. It is a political agenda which has as its purpose a pacified society incapable of the psychological ability to defend itself against aggression. This is based on the history of its roots and how it manifests with the same language, the same proponents and the same demands and proclamations that arise in other areas that have one common denominator - the psychological ability to take action to physically defend ones self against others.
The issue is a complicated one, which is made more so because important elements are deliberately ignored so as to make the intended arguments for those controls and restrictions on various
entertainment media, that will ultimately assist in pacification, more effective. For example, the issue isn't whether a game is violent or not, it is what kind of violence is portrayed and to what degree of realism. No one seems to have focused on the biggest question of all - why the creation of games that make the player the one committing antisocial acts of depravity? These games are the ones that play more easily into the hands of those who want to ban all forms of media that portray violence of any kind, who believe that all violence is bad and only those officially sanctioned and controlled by the government should not only be the sole class to have the right to use violence, but also be the only ones with the means, skill and psychological proclivity to engage in effective violent behavior. A pacified society is a society that, under all circumstances, is a society under control and incapable of taking action to prevent or overthrow tyranny. Games like Grand Theft Auto are the flip side of the same coin that has the efforts to ban all violence in entertainment, on its other side. That coin is the currency that pacification is being bought with, on a lay-away installment plan.
The closing comments attributed to the authors of the study are familiar. Once again, the cry for public policy changes when in fact I'm willing to bet that the data is as flawed as ever, and there is just simply more of it this time.