Charlotte Markey of Rutgers University, have presented evidence that some children may become more aggressive as a result of watching and playing violent video games, but that most are not affected. After reviewing the research, they concluded that the combination of three personality traits might be most likely to make an individual act and think aggressively after playing a violent video game. The three traits they identified were high neuroticism prone to anger and depression, highly emotional, and easily upset , disagreeableness cold, indifferent to other people , and low levels of conscientiousness prone to acting without thinking, failing to deliver on promises, breaking rules.
Cheryl Olson, cofounder of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Mental Health and Media, led a study of 1, students in public schools most were ages 12 to 14 in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. The researchers found that certain situations increased exposure to violent video games — such as locating game consoles and computers in children's bedrooms, and allowing older siblings to share games with younger ones.
In this study, children who played video games often with older siblings were twice as likely as other children to play mature-rated games considered suitable for ages 17 and older. In a three-year study, a team led by Dr.
Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California, Irvine, both interviewed and observed the online behavior of youths. The researchers concluded that video game play and other online activities have become so ubiquitous among young people that they have altered how young people socialize and learn.
Although adults tend to view video games as isolating and antisocial, other studies found that most young respondents described the games as fun, exciting, something to counter boredom, and something to do with friends. For many youths, violent content is not the main draw. Boys in particular are motivated to play video games in order to compete and win. Seen in this context, use of violent video games may be similar to the type of rough-housing play that boys engage in as part of normal development.
Video games offer one more outlet for the competition for status or to establish a pecking order. Parents can protect their children from potential harm from video games by following a few commonsense strategies — particularly if they are concerned that their children might be vulnerable to the effects of violent content. These simple precautions may help:.
Place video consoles and computers in common areas of the home, rather than in children's bedrooms. Set limits on the amount of time youths can play these games. The AAP recommends two hours or less of total screen time per day, including television, computers, and video games. Encourage participation in sports or school activities in which youths can interact with peers in person rather than online. Video games share much in common with other pursuits that are enjoyable and rewarding, but may become hazardous in certain contexts.
Parents can best protect their children by remaining engaged with them and providing limits and guidance as necessary. American Academy of Pediatrics. Anderson CA, et al. Ferguson CJ. Ito M, et al. MacArthur Foundation, Lenhart A, et al. Markey PM, et al. Olson CK. Olson CK, et al. As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content.
Please note the date of last review or update on all articles. It makes sense that since playing violent video games tends to increase the level of aggressive behavior it would also result in more lethal violence or other criminal behaviors, but there is no clear evidence to support that assumption. That paper and many others stress that video game exposure is only one of many risk factors for aggressive behavior and violence.
Various scholars point to such factors as racism and ethnic hatred, certain psychiatric disorders, adverse social environments, and easy access to guns and other lethal weapons, which may be the most critical factor of all. Focusing on violent video games as the cause of mass shootings almost certainly distracts legislators and government officials from the pressing need to deal with more fundamental causes.
It is a moral imperative for federal and state legislators, government officials, and all others concerned with lethal violence to confront the underlying problems and not take symbolic refuge in blaming violent video games.
Phil Boffey is former deputy editor of the New York Times Editorial Board and editorial page writer, primarily focusing on the impacts of science and health on society.
He was also editor of Science Times and a member of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by The Dana Foundation. Higgins, Monash University. The chief risk in sharing data is that, if it escapes from the research realm or falls into the wrong hands, it can harm the individual whose data has been shared.
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Times were converted to minutes, and responses to each question were combined. Because there are no established cutoff points for video game playing time, we chose 2 hours a priori because this time cut point adheres to the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation of no more than 2 hours of entertainment media screen time per day.
We assessed video game violence by asking students how often video games they played on all platforms i. We created a composite variable video game time—video game violence exposure by combining video game time exposure and video game violence into four categories: a low time and low violence used as the reference value ; b low time and high violence; c high time and low violence; and d high time and high violence.
Because exposure to real-life violence and aggressive behavior could confound the relationship between playing violent video games and depression, we also controlled for peer victimization, witnessing violence, being threatened with violence, and aggression.
Peer victimization both physical and nonphysical experienced in the past 12 months was measured using the mean score of a six-item scale. Witnessing violence was measured by asking the students if they had witnessed a someone being told that they would be beaten up, b someone being beaten up, c someone being threatened with a gun, and d someone being threatened with a knife. Being threatened with or exposed to violence was measured by asking students if they had been a threatened to be beaten up, b threatened with a gun, c threatened with a knife, and d beaten up to an extent requiring medical attention.
Aggression was measured using a four-item scale adapted from Little et al. To determine if high violent video game exposure was associated with having more depressive symptoms, we constructed linear regression models using the continuous dependent variable, depressive symptoms, and the composite exposure variable, video game time—video game violence exposure. The dependent variable measuring depression was calculated as the sum of reported depressive symptoms for a given individual, yielding the interpretation that a positive regression coefficient indicates that the average number of depressive symptoms is higher for a given group relative to the referent.
As the regression coefficient moves away from zero, the larger the magnitude of the difference becomes. Effect sizes were estimated to enable a standardized comparison of effect sizes across groups. Because peer victimization, witnessing violence, being threatened with violence, and aggression could also increase the risk of depression and be related to increased likelihood of playing violent video games, these variables were also controlled for in all models.
Student mean age was Overall, Table 3 shows the adjusted standardized regression coefficients for the association between video game time—video game violence exposure and the number of depressive symptoms. Statistically significant values are shown in bold. SE, standard error. In the present study, we examined the association between daily violent video game playing over the past year and depression in a large, ethnically diverse preadolescent sample.
The magnitude of these associations was small Cohen's d values ranged from 0. However, these effect sizes are similar to those reported for the association between playing violent video games and aggression.
They also suggest that this association is unique, given that the number of depressive symptoms was not associated either with playing low-violence video games or with time spent playing video games in general.
Our findings differ from those of the two studies that have directly examined the relationship between violent video game exposure and depression. Our findings are likely different for several reasons. First, the previous studies used an experimental design to test whether a single exposure to video game violence increased depression, whereas we measured frequency of regular exposure to violent video games.
Second, the previous studies had smaller samples and thus may have lacked the power to examine this association among subgroups. Lastly, the previous studies used a depression measure that was not sensitive enough to detect immediate changes in depression after an exposure. Our finding that the association between playing violent video games and depression was consistent among boys, but not girls, is noteworthy.
This gender-specific effect needs to be examined more fully. However, it might be the case that playing violent video games is a gender-associated behavior, as demonstrated by our finding that only 2. Furthermore, the present study lacked the power to test this association among girls fully. The association between playing violent video games and depression in general and among boys in particular needs to be confirmed in other studies before we can delineate the mechanisms underlying this association or suggest clinical implications, which may include counseling preadolescents and their parents about the potential harmful effects of excessive violent video game playing.
The present study's findings contribute to the growing literature examining the relationship between the mental health of children and exposure to violent media in general and to violent video games in particular, but they should be interpreted in light of some important limitations. First, because these data are cross-sectional, the temporal and causal relationship between violent video game playing and depression cannot be elucidated.
It is plausible that students who endorsed more depressive symptoms may prefer playing video games that have more violent content. Moreover, if higher depression reflected preferences for violent video games, students with high violence and low time might be expected to have similar coefficients to those with high violence and high time.
Second, although ethnically diverse, the analytic sample was drawn from three U. Third, nonresponse bias may be present because we did not have permission to contact all parents for inclusion in the study. Finally, all depression measures were gathered through child self-report. However, the magnitude of the association was small and a causal relationship cannot be inferred. Nevertheless, it should be noted that even these small effect sizes can be of practical importance considering the large number of preadolescent and adolescent youth who regularly play violent video games.
More studies are needed to examine the association between playing violent video games and depression in general and among boys in particular. If this association were confirmed, longitudinal studies would then be needed to investigate its causality, persistence over time, underlying mechanisms, and clinical implications.
The findings and conclusions of this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. Susan R. Tortolero , PhD, 1 Melissa F. Peskin , PhD, 1 Elizabeth R. Baumler , PhD, 1 Paula M. Cuccaro , PhD, 1 Marc N. Elliott , PhD, 2 Susan L. Davies , PhD, 3 Terri H. Lewis , PhD, 3 Stephen W. Banspach , PhD, 4 David E. Kanouse , PhD, 2 and Mark A. Schuster , MD, PhD 2,, 5,, 6. Find articles by Susan R. Melissa F. Find articles by Melissa F. Elizabeth R.
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