MONDAY, Nov. 3 (Health.com) — About 90% of Americans ages 8–16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so—even more if they’re boys. Now a new study suggests that virtual violence may make kids more aggressive in real life.
According to the study in the journal Pediatrics, children and teens who reported playing violent video games had more aggressive behavior months later than their peers who did not play the games.
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 games?
It’s a murky—and controversial—issue. Many studies have linked violence in TV shows and video games to violent behavior. In fact, many states have tried to restrict minors’ access to games rated M for mature, but the video game industry, as well as free-speech activists, have often successfully challenged the proposed restrictions in court.
In the new study, Craig A. Anderson, PhD, and his colleagues at Iowa State University, in Ames, looked at the ways that children and teen’s video game habits at one point in time related to their behavior three to six months later.
The study included three groups: 181 Japanese students age 12 to 15; 1,050 Japanese students age 13 to 18; and 364 Americans age 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 Japanese group, researchers gauged the violence in the teens’ favorite game genres and the time they spent playing them each week.
The Japanese groups rated their own behavior in terms of physical aggression, including violent acts such as hitting, kicking, or getting into fights with other kids; the U.S. children rated themselves too, but the researchers also considered reports from their peers and teachers.
In every group, those exposed to more video game violence did become more aggressive over time, as opposed to 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.
Next page: Video violence may desensitize kids
Comments (16)
I am doing a social studies prohect for social studies of course and this is one of my biblographys. I am thanking you because you helped me find information and research and i really appreciate it health news.
p.s. It would be a great health article to do foe health if you are in school.
I’d love to see the study that shows how playing violent sports increases physical aggression. (Do useful research)
Bull. so-called “studies” are almost never legitamate. In fact, just look at the first line: “About 90% of Americans ages 8–16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so—even more if they’re boys.”
Hmm, funny – I don’t see 90% of all boys engaged in school shootings.
Actually, You’re more likely statistically to die by lightning strike than by school shooting.
Thank you for the text!
I used it on a college paper and it enriched my work!
OH THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!
I have been looking over every magazine I have and couldn’t find anything for my Psychology research paper.
This has saved my life!
I have been reasearching for my psychology project and i just want to say thank you! this helped alot.
Actually kids don’t become violent by video games. They play video games because they already are violent.
Video games don’t make kids bad they calm them down and they can release there angered on the game not in real life!
Test that.
Ok wait, that didn’t come out right. Most kids that don’t play video games at my school usually get in fights. But kids that do play video games don’t get in fights.
It’s not a matter of the violence in the game but the age of the child if there 11 and younger probably shouldn’t be playing these kinds if games. What they play play is up to the parents.
thanks for the info, am using it for a media studies project, we’ve been doing this for some time and what i’ve found out is that mentally unstable children are more likely to recreate the games that they play as they have a feeling of power and conquering that they do not get out of real life situations.
I know this article is very useful but they just summarized an article from CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/03/healthmag.violent.video.kids/index.html
Hi Furkan, I’m an editor at Health.com. Thanks for noticing the similarity between the two articles! They are actually one and the same (Health.com is a syndication partner with CNN.com and they occasionally run our content.) Take care and thanks for reading (and commenting!) Best, Theresa
“About 90% of Americans ages 8–16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so—even more if they’re boys”
Even more if they are boys?
that is total bull shlaka!
I’m a 17 year old girl doing a report on media violnce and an avid video gamer. I play violent video games more than my 15 year old brother, who also loves violnet video games. Personally, i know quite a few girls that play more violent video games than their brothers, those whom are around the same age.
Anyways,
Just wanted to say thanks because this article helped me to get bibliographys for my 15 page paper.
Thanks:)
come on now. Its the parents that let the teens play violent video games for 13 hours. If a teen does nothing but shoot people in a video game all day, it’s common sense that he would react with that very same learned behavior when faced with a stressful situation. This is nothing more than moms and dads not paying attention.
so kids are more violent playing violent games? i always played them to release my anger……..
at least it helped me on my report……
yes what are the results of children playing violent video games and is it possible to do a pie chart..it is for school