Blogpost written by Oscar Echeverria and Ghaith Ben Hnia
For decades, the effects of violent video games have been a hot topic in the media. Whether it is worried parents trying to tell you to stop playing so many games or politicians blaming violent video games for the mass shootings in the USA, everyone thinks that violent games like Grand Theft Auto can lead to aggressive behaviour. It’s as if it’ll create a car mugger or hitman in our society, or that violent games will lead to anxiety, depression and antisocial behaviour, for example, lack of empathy. But is that true? This has been a topic of much research and debate in the psychology field throughout the years, a debate filled with polarising views and inconsistencies in the effect of violent video games on aggression.
A recent study led by Simone Kühn and colleagues published in Molecular Psychiatry, dives into this controversial question, with a novel and comprehensive approach. Previous studies on violent video games observed only the short-term effects. Usually, researchers would ask participants to play for a few minutes and then measure aggression. These short studies usually show a little spike in aggressive thoughts or feelings. Researchers believe that this is due to „priming effects”, the idea that seeing or hearing something violent can increase aggression. Kühn and her group think that this approach has a flaw which is that short-term studies also have short-term effects. These effects, which last minutes at most, make these studies inadequate to address the main question that society has, which is the long-term effects of video games. Furthermore, the study dives into other behavioural changes such as depression, anxiety, and lack of empathy to name a few. Not only does the study focus on the negative effects, but the study also investigates the positive effects that action games have on executive functions; executive functions refer to a set of mental skills such as memory, flexible thinking and self-control, which other studies have claimed action video games have.
The Method: Testing Actual Long-Term Effects of Violent Games
Kühn and her team conducted a study to understand the effects video games exert on players’ behaviour in a long-term span, which is the concern many have about video games in daily life. The researchers looked at what it means to be a gamer. They recruited 90 adults who had virtually no gaming experience. They assigned these individuals to one of three groups. One group played the violent game Grand Theft Auto V. Another group played the non-violent simulation game The Sims 3. Then, the third group didn’t play any games. For two months, the game groups played daily. All participants were assessed previously and afterwards for traits including aggression, empathy, impulsivity, and mental health.
The research sought to answer real-world questions about how the video games we play shape our feelings, the way we communicate with others, and the choices we make. Rather than a one-casual-game-a-day approach, it sought to find the type of game played frequently over a longer period. This view does not only talk about the impact of gaming. Rather, it analyses whether your habit of gaming has other repercussions like changing your behaviour with others over time.
Results from the study
Kühn and colleagues concluded that there were no detrimental effects to playing violent video games. During their testing, they found no detrimental behavioural effects on the group that played GTA V. Additionally, no changes to the executive functions were found, however, this was due to the type of games the participants played being different from the first-person perspective games that are usually used for testing the effect on executive functions. This means that in the end, parents can rest easy, as video games do not, in fact, cause aggressive behaviours, nor do they cause an increase in depression and anxiety. However, it is important to note that violent video games are targeted at a demographic of older teenagers and young adults, and the researchers acknowledge that testing on behavioural changes of children was not a part of this study, this is due to the nature of games like GTA V and other violent games not being appropriate for children. So the test not finding any correlation between aggression and playing violent video games does not mean parents should ignore the age ratings of each game, as these ratings exist to inform customers about the content of the game and to which age group they are meant for.
This study has contributed not only to the debate on the effects violent video games have on aggression but also to other negative effects such as anxiety and depression that violent video games can have, a topic of much debate over the years in the field of psychology. By providing evidence in favour of video games not having negative effects on behaviours collected via a comprehensive test, the results of this study can be used in a positive manner to clear up misconceptions that the media has had on violent video games and their relations to violence.
For us, Video games are a safe space for players to express themselves and escape from reality. But as we escape into virtual spaces, we need to ask ourselves if we are running away from our reality or are we engaging with it in different ways.
