It's been a tumultuous few days here in Washington D.C., where I'm holed up at my mum's working on my PhD, hoarse but happy from a night of election celebrations on U St. & 14th (head here for more coverage from the phenomenal Guardian team). But in spite of the most important news telegraphing from the headlines of the local paper, there's another piece that my be of more interest to the readers of this blog.
Study links violent video games, hostility said The Washington Post (onerous registration required) on Monday 3 November.
While other reports have linked localised and short-term aggression with playing violent games, this international, longitudinal study has found that aggression amongst its sample in the US and Japan for months afterward. From the article:
The study in the United States showed an increased likelihood of getting into a fight at school or being identified by a teacher or peer as being physically aggressive five to six months later in the same school year. It focused on 364 children ages 9 to 12 in Minnesota and was first included in a 2007 book, "Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents."Japanese researchers studied more than 1,200 Japanese youths ages 12 to 18. In all three studies, researchers accounted for gender and previous aggressiveness.
"We now have conclusive evidence that playing violent video games has harmful effects on children and adolescents," Anderson said.
I'm not yet ready to be conclusive for several reasons. First, what is defined as an 'aggressive' behaviour? In at least two of the studies identified in the Pediatrics article, this will arguably vary as it is a subjective, non-blind assessment by teachers.
Second, what is considered a 'violent' game? No mention in the article, but a scrounge identified the violent games in the US study as 'Future Cop' and 'Street Fighter'. I'm sure people reading this blog could identify others more violent. Indeed, the Post did; they put a larger-than-life picture of the UK's own controversial hot potato, Manhunt 2, with its article.
Finally, there has been little research that has identified what the correlations between aggression and video game violence actually mean. As anyone schooled in statistics knows all too well, correlation does not mean causation. What are the aggressiveness tendencies of the people who choose to play violent games in the first place?
Others have also weighed in on the study, published in the most recent edition of Pediatrics. A Texas A & M psychology professor has contributed a formal response to the article, titled Weak Results, Misleading Conclusions. Read up and let us know what you think about these issues.
