Study Links Violent Video Games, Hostility

By Donna St. George, Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 3, 2008
(This article has been edited because of space constraints.)

Children and teenagers who play violent video games show increased physical aggression months afterward, according to new research that adds another layer of evidence to the continuing debate over the video-game habits of the youngest generation. The research, published today in the journal Pediatrics, brings together three longitudinal studies, one from the United States and two from Japan, examining the content of games, how often they are played, and aggressive behaviors later in a school year. The U.S. research was the first in the nation to look at the effects of violent games over time, said lead author Craig A. Anderson, a psychology professor at Iowa State University and director of its Center for the Study of Violence.

Anderson said the collaboration with Japanese researchers was particularly telling because video games are popular there, and crime and aggression are less prevalent. Some gamers have cited Japan’s example that violent games are not harmful.

Yet the studies produced similar findings in both countries, Anderson said. “When you find consistent effects across two very different cultures, you’re looking at a pretty powerful phenomenon. This is a general phenomenon that occurs across cultures.”

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 nine through twelve in Minnesota and was first included in a 2007 book, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents.

Japanese researchers studied more than 1200 Japanese youth ages twelve to eighteen. 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.

The American Journal of Pediatrics, which publishes the journal in which the study appears this month, is in the process of revising its recommendations on media violence and expects to issue a new statement in four to six months, a spokesman said. The academy now recognizes violence in media as a significant health risk to children and adolescents. “Extreme forms of violence,” Anderson said, “almost always occur when there is a convergence of multiple risk factors.”

A U.S. Surgeon General report in 2001 identified an array of those risk factors, including gang involvement, antisocial parents and peers, substance abuse, poverty, and media violence. Males are more at risk. The new study noted that video games are played in 90 percent of American homes with children ages eight to sixteen and that the average playing time of four hours a week in the 1980s is now up to thirteen hours a week, with boys averaging sixteen to eighteen hours per week.

As can be noted by the reading of the above article, the use of video games has become a national obsession with young people. Although the article focuses on the violence associated with the use of the games, how much more should we shudder and be frightened by the terrible waste of time by so many young people. The pervasiveness of the video media has even extended itself into the homes of some of our readers. Although it is granted that some video games may be useful for instructional purposes, the vast majority of these games are used to idle away the precious time which the Lord has granted us here on this earth. Video games are even readily available on cell phones today and can be accessed by our young people at almost any time and place.

In addition to the sinful waste of time which is caused by these games, we should recognize that by “playing” many of these games we not only waste precious time but with our thoughts and our actions we also agree with the violence and other improper activities which take place when we are busy with these “games.” How many of God’s commandments are transgressed every time we pick up one of these games? We read in Lord’s Day 38 of the Heidelberg Catechism, “That all the days of my life I cease from my evil works, and yield myself to the Lord, to work by His Holy Spirit in me; and thus begin in this life the eternal Sabbath.” In Lord’s Day 40 God commands us, “That neither in thoughts, nor words, nor gestures, much less in deeds, I dishonor, hate, wound, or kill my neighbor, by myself or by another.”

How clear God’s Word is on how we should conduct ourselves every day, hour, and moment of our lives. Let us always remember that one day we will have to give an account to a holy and righteous God for every idle moment and every idle word (Matthew 12:36-37).

(It is recommended that educators in our schools read the full report of the study to gain insight into this serious problem.)

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