With recent debates where politicians try to attack something other than gun laws, a lot of people have found themselves defending video games. Articles do everything from casually state, “video games don’t cause violence” to mock outright those who still hold the idiotic, backwards belief that video games affect people. I don't believe that the solution to our gun problem lies in video games, mind you, but truth is truth.
The mantra that "science proves that video games don't affect people" is not only false, I find it somewhat offensive. One reason I love video games (and other entertainment) IS THAT they are so powerful.
I'm here to just vomit science all over my own spaces, so I don’t have to do it on anybody else’s. Science supports the idea that video games change people. Video games are internalized. Violent video games, especially those where you play anti-heroes, cause people to internalize aggression, including misogynistic beliefs.
Before I start, let me clarify up front that I’m cherry-picking to make a point, which is a relevant thing to be doing. There are articles about the relationship between drug use and video games, about the health-related implementation of video games, about video game preferences changing with age, and, yes, even about how video games don’t increase violent behavior. However, cherry-picking is NOT hard in this case, and the sample I’m providing IS representative of the overall conclusion that science has come to at this point. You will find one article that fails to prove a connection for every dozen or more that do prove a connection, and the majority of articles that suggest no connection are opinion articles that do not provide any data of their own. A not-insignificant proportion of them demonstrate that autistic children are not at particular risk.
An entirely separate field of study is how young people and gamers are primed to be defensive about video games, and have difficulty assimilating new evidence FOR the effects of violent video games. I’ll not be including those articles here. To my gamer friends: embrace the true power of your medium.
A non-exhaustive list of supporting primary scientific articles and their conclusions (from the NCBI):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4151190/
“In sum, the current research supports the perspective that MRRG gameplay can have consequences for deviant behavior broadly defined by affecting the personality, attitudes, and values of the player.”
(MRRG stands for “mature-rated, risk-glorifying”)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4830454/
“Our results supported the prediction that playing violent-sexist video games increases masculine beliefs, which occurred for male (but not female) participants who were highly identified with the game character. Masculine beliefs, in turn, negatively predicted empathic feelings for female violence victims.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5332106/
“These results provided only inconsistent support for the disengagement hypothesis, suggesting that participants found it difficult to separate a neutral face from a crowd of emotional faces.”
(Yes, this one’s weak, but it’s positive, not negative.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4229070/
“These findings suggest that both playing violent video games online and offline compared to playing neutral video games increases aggression.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5346125/
“...for children playing approximately 8 h or more per week, frequent competitive gaming may be a risk factor for decreasing prosocial behavior”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4227415/
“Our findings indicate that there is an association between daily exposure to violent video games and number of depressive symptoms among preadolescent youth.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1140725/
“Physicians and parents should appreciate that T-rated video games may be a source of exposure to violence and some unexpected content for children and adolescents, and that the majority of T-rated video games provide incentives to the players to commit simulated acts of violence.”
(This one doesn’t make a judgment call about the violence or its effects, it merely dispassionately pointed out that, while some people don’t expect serious violence in T-rated games, it is there. So, perhaps a bit of a tangent, but still related.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374198/
“Controlling for gender and socioeconomic level, results showed that video game exposure and religiosity were both related to sexism.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29093050
“The vast majority of laboratory-based experimental studies have revealed that violent media exposure causes increased aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiologic arousal, hostile appraisals, aggressive behavior, and desensitization to violenceand decreases prosocial behavior (eg, helping others) and empathy.”
(This is a review, not primary literature, but it’s a scientific review, not a popular media article. For those unaware of what this means, this is of a peer-reviewed quality, and capable of being quoted in primary literature. Basically, when enough primary research has been done, people evaluate the research overall and write scientific evaluations called reviews.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28221065
“Consistent with the literature that we reviewed, we found that violent video game exposure was associated with: an increased composite aggression score; increased aggressive behavior; increased aggressive cognitions; increased aggressive affect, increased desensitization, and decreased empathy; and increased physiological arousal. The size of the effects was similar to that in prior meta-analyses, suggesting a stable result. “
(This is the official APA taskforce in 2017, which is a huge deal. They don’t make statements like this lightly.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26880037
“Social dominance orientation and hostile sexism predicted higher levels of both sexual harassment and general harassment in online games. Game involvement and hours of weekly gameplay were additional predictors of general harassment.”
(This is referring to online harassment by males within the games that they’re playing.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26855192
“The FC patterns revealed a decrease in connectivity within 6 brain networks during the violence-related compared to the non-violence-related condition: three sensory-motor networks, the reward network, the default mode network (DMN), and the right-lateralized frontoparietal network. Playing violent racing games may change functional brain connectivity, in particular and even after controlling for event frequency, in the reward network and the DMN.”
(FC stands for functional connectivity.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26652675
“This suggests that individuals who play many hours of action VGs may be more capable of lethal self-harm if they experience suicide ideation, although this association does not exist for individuals who play other categories of VGs.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26587734
“The results of the present study imply that how a violent video game is played through different interfaces can magnify the intensity of postgame aggressive thoughts on top of already increased aggression due to trait-level hostility.”
(This one is really interesting, and demonstrates all sorts of interesting things. Two examples: People who play lots of video games are more readily able to identify with video game characters of new games, thus increasing enjoyment of new games. Also, input methods for video games (such as controllers) alter the intensity of postgame outcomes.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26386004
“Despite a variety of methodological weaknesses in his meta-analysis, Ferguson (2015, this issue) presents evidence to support the positive association between violent media consumption and a number of poor developmental outcomes.”
(This one is merely a commentary, but a commentary by a group of scientific experts toward scientists, not a popular media article toward potential customers. It is significant because it is one of many scientific responses to an article where one scientist (Ferguson) did a meta-analysis that was intended to demonstrate that there was only weak correlation between violence in games and poor developmental outcomes. Turns out that he done messed up.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26299393
“Violent video game players recognized fearful faces both more accurately and quickly and disgusted faces less accurately than non-gamers.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26181802
“Findings suggest that gameplaying with a sexualized woman may increase adolescents' acceptance of rape myths and tolerance for sexual harassment.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26121373
“Reward structures selectively affected in-game aggression, whereas narrative context selectively affected postgame aggression. Players who enacted in-game violence through a heroic character exhibited less postgame aggression than players who enacted comparable levels of in-game violence through an antiheroic character.”
(To put this plainly, if you’re playing a badass, you are more likely to have postgame aggression.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25803312
“Results indicate that taking what participants perceive to be the more moral mind-set in the video game predicts more antisocial behavior on the first task, but more pro-social behavior on the next task.”
(This one is complicated, but definitely demonstrates that video games affect us afterward.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25681166
“We found support for the hypothesized cultivation model, indicating a relationship between video game consumption and RMA via interpersonal aggression and hostile sexism”
(RMA stands for “rape myth acceptance”)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25455576
“It was concluded that exposure to violent video games increases the relative risk of desensitization to violence, which in turn may increase aggression and decrease prosocial behavior.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25043905
“Consistent with priming theory, results showed that both male and female participants who played a violent game as a male avatar behaved more aggressively afterwards than those who played as female avatar. The priming effects of the male avatar were somewhat stronger for male participants...”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24464267
“Consistent with the predictions of social-cognitive, observational learning theory, this study supports the hypothesis that carrying weapons to school is associated with violent game play.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24458215
“Whereas violent video games increase aggression and aggression-related variables and decrease prosocial outcomes, prosocial video games have the opposite effects. These effects were reliable across experimental, correlational, and longitudinal studies, indicating that video game exposure causally affects social outcomes and that there are both short- and long-term effects.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24085715
“In fact, a correlational study revealed that violent video game exposure was positively related to ethnocentrism. This relation remained significant when controlling for trait aggression. Providing causal evidence, an experimental study showed that playing a violent video game increased aggressive behavior, and that this effect was more pronounced when the target was an outgroup rather than an ingroup member.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24335350
“ Prosocial-media use was positively associated with helping. This effect was mediated by empathy and was similar across cultures. .... Path analyses showed significant longitudinal effects of prosocial- and violent-video-game use on prosocial behavior through empathy. Latent-growth-curve modeling for the 2-year period revealed that change in video-game use significantly affected change in helping, and that this relationship was mediated by change in empathy.”
(This one is a little backwards, cause it’s pointing out that playing positive games increases positive behavior. Because video games ARE AWESOME!!)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23951954
“Taken together, it appears that being helpful while playing video games leads to the perception of being more human, whereas being harmful while playing video games leads players to perceive themselves negatively.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23745616
This one rambles about its conclusion a bit. Basically, when you believe that your character is a hero (Superman or a generic “warm and empathic” character) fighting for good, you are more likely to follow gaming with prosocial behavior. Believing that you’re a bad guy (Joker or his generic bad counterpart) resulted in participants judging others as more hostile. They close, ”This is in line with previous findings that empathy may not be positive per se. In fact, it may backfire depending on the interaction of game characters and the empathy players feel for them.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23650097
“Thus, violent video games that are framed in an explicitly prosocial context may evoke more prosocial sentiments and thereby mitigate some of the short-term effects on aggression observed in previous research. … aggressive behavior was not completely eliminated by the inclusion of a prosocial context for the violence.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23253205
“Exposure to violent online games was associated with being a perpetrator as well as a perpetrator-and-victim of cyberbullying.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23097053
“As expected, violent video game players had lower cardiac coherence levels and higher aggression levels than did nonviolent game players. Cardiac coherence, in turn, was negatively related to aggression.”
(Cardiac coherence is the synchronization of breathing with heart rate.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22766175
“Results showed that exposure to GTA predicted higher levels of moral disengagement. Recency of exposure had a primary impact on the considered mechanisms of moral disengagement.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22550147
“By employing a Solomon Four-Group experimental research design, this exploratory study found that a video game depicting sexual objectification of women and violence against women resulted in statistically significant increased rape myths acceptance (rape-supportive attitudes) for male study participants but not for female participants.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22549724
“Prosocial games reduced state hostility and increased positive state affect. Violent video games had the opposite effects. These effects were moderated by trait physical aggression. Altruistic participants reported relatively more positive affect and less state hostility. Egoistic participants reported relatively more aggravated and mean feelings.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22489544
“The social context of game play influenced subsequent behavior more than the content of the game that was played.”
(This means that players who worked together in the game were more willing to work together outside the game than players who were competitive in the game. Game design matters as much as content.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22302216
“Discussion highlights how violent video gaming is associated with lower levels of prosocial behavior through the mechanism of decreased empathic concern, how this association can affect prosocial behavior differently across target, and finally what implications this might have for development during emerging adulthood.”
AND THERE’S A TON MORE! I’m just getting tired of listing these. But hopefully this’ll help people to be a bit skeptical when they see those popular articles that make fun of people for believing video games affect us. Video games are the most powerful art medium of all time.
