Video Game Violence and Player Aggression:

Should Parents Worry?

YES!

Fear Mongering is Good Politics

From the 1954 U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee on juvenile delinquency:

Depraved acts of murder, robbery, mayhem, and virtually every other form of crime are presented and explained in illustrated detail

in an array of comic books being bought and read daily by thousands of children. These books evidence a common penchant

for violent death in every form imaginable, even cannibalism.

-the growing problem of youth and teen violence has

(insert media type here) to blame for it, because

-children will act like criminals merely by exposure to (media type)

Video games are a greater threat than these others

The core points are always the same:

My talk:

1. These games are potentially training our kids to kill the same way simulators are used by the army and police force

2. The rising popularity of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence

3. Video games are socially isolating for children, who are the primary target market for console games

4. Scientific evidence clearly links violent game play with aggressive behaviour

1. These games are training our kids to kill!!U.S. Army, FBI, etc. use first person shooters to train their recruits

But what about all those school shootings where the shooters always had a long history of having played lots of violent video games?

-teamwork, thinking under pressure

-player versus trainee goals

-fantasy versus reality

1. These games are training our kids to kill!!U.S. Army, FBI, etc. use first person shooters to train their recruits

But what about all those school shootings where the shooters always had a long history of having played lots of violent video games?

-teamwork, thinking under pressure

-player versus trainee goals

-fantasy versus reality

More than fifteen million people have played Doom, Quake, or some other 1st person shooter

The “McDonalds” effect

“mental stability of the individual and quality of home life”

2. Video game popularity has led to an epidemic of youth violence!!

2. Video game popularity has led to an epidemic of youth violence!!

3. Games are socially isolating and targeting kids

ESRB statistics:

Rated “M” or “AO”: 1382

Total ratings: 17,856

In other words, less than 8% of all rated games are M or higher

4. Research is finding that playing violent video games makes people more aggressive and violent

-Measuring aggression: validity issues-manipulating violent content

-correlation studies

-experimental research

My humble study:

1) Does the effect persist despite improvements in design?

2) If so, then how big an impact does it have relative to other possible contributing factors?

Pilot work was carried out to find compatible games

Nonviolent game: Project Gotham Racing 4

Violent game: Unreal tournament 3

Game difficult was manipulated by setting the AI levels of the computer opponents for each game.

So, there were four groups: easy/nonviolent, difficult/nonviolent,

easy/violent, and difficult/violent

Independently varied violent content and difficulty level

Mean SHS Mean SHS

1.7

1.8

1.9

2

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

2.7

1.7

1.8

1.9

2

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

2.7

nonviolent violent easy difficult

Main effect of violent content on mean State Hostility Scale scores

Main effect of game difficulty on mean State Hostility Scale scores

The results:

Video Game Violence and Player Aggression:

Should Parents Worry?

Probably not.