The common opinion on video games is that they are not good for you, or as I have heard many times, “They fry your brain.” With violent video games, such as Call of Duty, or Grand Theft Auto, there is an especially negative connotation. It is often suggested that individuals that play violent or aggressive games become mor
e aggressive and violent individuals. Without seeing any studies, I would be led to believe that this is an accurate assumption, and the results of studies also back this up.
A meta-analysis of 98 independent studies, consisting of 37,000 people, is consistent with this idea. The study came to the conclusion that video games that promote aggression increased aggression and decrease social outcomes. It also concluded that prosocial video games do not have a negative effect, they have a positive social impact. Since this study is a meta-analysis, it is very convincing. It also appears the study was well done, and proved causality between video games and social outcomes. I do see an aspect of reverse causality affecting such a study. I see this because I feel as though aggressive people would be more likely to play aggressive video games, but the study seems to convincingly prove that the video games make the individual more aggressive.
Also, another study from Italy also found negative impacts of violent video games. Although these studies have a slightly different finding, they are consistent with the idea that violent video games have a negative impact. The study concluded that the violent video games decreased self-control and increased cheating and aggressiveness.
I do not love the method used in the study, because the likeliness of the individual to eat the M&Ms could be contingent on confounding variables, not just self-control. I also do not particularly like basing findings off of a survey given to the participants, because I feel as though participants would be more inclined to choose the politically correct answer, rather than how they actually feel. I believe the study was well done and can be trusted. The threat of reverse causation is extremely minimal, if present at all, because it is highly unlikely that eating more M&Ms causes an individual to be aggressive. Therefore, the study convincingly shows a causal relationship between self-control and aggression and violent video games.
These findings raise the question: Should parents let their children play video games? My answer is yes, but be careful. I feel as though games such as FIFA, Mario Kart, and other games that promote fun and competition are perfectly fine and children should be encouraged to play them. With that being said, I would highly advise against allowing children to play highly violent games such as Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, etc. The non violent games promote more positive attributes, while the violent and aggressive games. If it were my children, I would be inclined to allow them to play only non violent games, at least up to a certain age. For instance, I see no reason why a 9 year-old needs to be playing shooting games, but a 14 or 15 year-old may be a little bit different.
These studies find that playing violent video games increase aggression, but I believe that it doesn’t apply to everybody. coming from experience, I play those type of games sometimes and I believe that I do not have increased aggression or decreased social skills. You said that the threat of reverse causation is minimal, but I disagree. I believe that an individual with aggressive behavior would choose to play these types of games in order to express their aggression and control it. But, I do agree that during the study, the participants would likely choose the politically correct answer on the survey. Therefore, the results of the study might be skewed.
I am curious if the study takes into account third variables such as previous mental instabilities and signs of aggression prior to playing the video games. Some people are just naturally born with these conditions and it is possible that they simply had innate aggression independent of the video games. I still see the possibility of reverse causation, regardless of this particular meta-analysis. It makes complete sense that more aggressive people tend to play more violent video games. I would like to see a study done to either prove or disprove the reverse causation. This study would take a certain number of kids, say 200, analyze their pre-existing aggression or any other psychological conditions, and have the kids play a set of video games ranging from not aggressive at all to extremely aggressive. After they have played each game for a certain amount of time, the study would ask them to rate the games from their favorite to least favorite. This would show the researchers how pre-existing psychological conditions impact video game choice. In turn, this would answer whether aggression impacts the choice to play aggressive or violent video games.