Computer Game Violence

For this blog I am going to be looking into computer game violence and its impact today. After watching the documentary ‘First person Shooter’, I have decided to look into the research that has been carried out into the affects that violent games have. I will look into what effects researchers believe violent games have on people. After writing about my research I shall evaluate what I have found out and give some of my own opinions on violent computer games.

According to psychologists, game players, particularly children, may become more aggressive and use violence to resolve conflicts. Research has also found that children may become more desensitized to violence in the real world, less sensitive to pain and suffering and more willing to tolerate ever – increasing levels of violence. There has also been concerns raised that the very young who play violent computer games may begin to believe that the real world is just as violent and dangerous as it appears in the computer game. This last concern was raised when it found in a survey of 900 eight year olds in the US, that over half of these children’s favourite game contained fantasy or extreme violence.

One piece of research hypothesized that we should expect computer games to have an impact on people’s lives because:

Children are more likely to imitate the action of a character with whom they identify. In violent computer games the player is often required to take the point of view the shooter or perpetrator.

Computer games by their very nature require active participation rather then passive observation.

Repetition increases learning. Computer games involve a great deal of repetition. If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioural rehearsal of violent activity.

Rewards increase learning, and computer games are based on a reward system.

Another piece of research that compared their own research to other people’s research found that there were patterns of results in five areas.

The first of these areas is ‘Exposure to violent games increases physiological arousal’. The studies carried out have shown that violent games increase physiological arousal. The heart rate, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure all increased while playing violent computer games. Research has also found that the effect may be even greater for children who are more naturally aggressive. These children who were more hostile showed much greater results in adrenaline, nor – adrenaline, and testosterone. These effects are important because these are the same types of physiological reactions bodies have when engaged in a fight.

The second pattern is that ‘Exposure to violent games increases aggressive thoughts’. This study showed that when measuring cognitive responses to playing violent games increased aggressive thoughts. These findings have been found for males and females, children and adults.

The third pattern is ‘Exposure to violent games increases aggressive emotions’. This study has shown that when measuring emotional responses, violent computer games increased aggressive emotions. This study also showed that game players who were more addicted to computer games were significantly more likely to be in a bad mood before, during, and after playing then were non – addicted gamers.

‘Exposure to violent games increases aggressive actions’. This was the forth recognised pattern. This showed that playing violent computer games increased aggression. In one particular study, students played either a violent or non violent game. After playing the game, they were given a competitive reaction time task in which they played against another student. If they beat the other student they were able to deliver a load noise blast. They got to chose how load and how long the noise blast would be. Students who had previously played the violent computer game delivered longer noise blasts to their opponents.

The final pattern witnessed is ‘Exposure to violent games decreases positive prosocial actions’. This showed that after playing violent computer games it decreased the player’s tendencies towards positive behaviours. One study showed that children who spent more time playing computer games were rated less positively by their classmates, then children who spent less time playing computer games. Also a study on younger children, were rated as more aggressive and less prosocial by their peers and by their teachers when exposed to violent computer games.

Although all these studies and research all seem to point to violent computer games being to blame for game player’s aggression. A recent study (December 2005) has put it down to something else. It has found a brain mechanism that may link violent computer games with aggression has been discovered by researchers in the USA. This work shows us that there may be a casual link between the two, not just a simple association. This association is down to studies which tell us that people who play violent computer games are more aggressive, more likely to commit violent crimes and less likely to help others, as discussed earlier. While others say that violent people will play violent computer games, and not that games can change someone’s behaviour. The study found that people who play violent games show diminished brain responses to images of real life violence, but not to other emotionally disturbing pictures e.g. dead animals or sick children. The study was carried out on 39 experienced gamers who played violent computer games. They showed them real life images, interspersed with violent scenes. They did this while carrying out EEGs on the subjects; the P300 (this reflects an evaluation of emotional content on an image on an EEG) was smaller or delayed when seeing a violent image.

From what I have written I can see why it is easy to point the finger of blame on violent computer games for aggression in younger people and sometimes even murder. The problem I have with this is that from my own personal experiences while playing violent games, I have not felt the need during or after to go out and mimic what I just played. I feel that the people who we read about and see in the news must have other problems which are not documented in the press; it is always the games fault for making them violent and want to hurt or even kill. I am not saying that games don’t lead to aggressive thoughts; studies have shown that they do, but these are only short term and should not last forever. Also when we see these stories in the press they are normally under 18, so what are these people playing a violent game for anyway. Violent games like Manhunt and Grand Theft Auto have 18 certificates, and so it is illegal to sell these games to people under that age.

Another part of the research that I do not agree with is ‘violent people will play violent games’ I play violent games and I am not a violent person. Some research that I do agree with is that I do believe that seeing violent images in games (or in TV or film) does lead to some desensitivity of violent images.

In conclusion I feel that either you believe strongly that violent games are going to make others violent or you believe that there is no real strong evidence that violent games make people more aggressive. Before violent computer games, there was violence on TV and on film, and for a while these were blamed for aggression in younger people. I feel that violent computer games are just another scapegoat that people can use for a more deep rooted problem.