The evidence is in.
A study analyzing 130 research reports that included more than 130,000 people worldwide concludes that exposure to violent video games makes kids more aggressive and less caring -- regardless of their age, sex, or culture.
"We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method -- that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal -- and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects," says Craig Anderson, Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology.
"And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts," he adds. "Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior."
The findings by the research team are reported in the March 2010 issue of the Psychological Bulletin , a journal of the American Psychological Association.
The team used meta-analytic procedures -- the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged kids to college undergraduates.
The research also included new longitudinal data that provided further confirmation that playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes.
"These are not huge effects -- not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang," says Anderson. "But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes. And it's a risk factor that's easy for an individual parent to deal with -- at least, easier than changing most other known risk factors for aggression and violence, such as poverty or one's genetic structure."
The analysis found that violent video game effects are significant in both Eastern and Western cultures, in males and females, and in all age groups. Although there are good theoretical reasons to expect the long-term harmful effects to be higher in younger, pre-teen youths, there was only weak evidence of such age effects.
The researchers conclude that the study has important implications for public policy debates, including development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce the harmful effects of playing violent video games.
"From a public policy standpoint, it's time to get off the question of, 'Are there real and serious effects?' That's been answered and answered repeatedly," Anderson says. "It's now time to move on to a more constructive question like, 'How do we make it easier for parents -- within the limits of culture, society, and law -- to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?'"
Nina Huntemann, associate professor of media studies at Suffolk University and author of "Joystick Soldiers," sympathizes with the task parents face. "It's hard to be a parent in a culture that seems to have an appetite for adult-oriented entertainment," she told ConsumerAffairs.com.
But she says there are steps parents can take to insulate their children from the harmful effects of playing violent video games. Playing the games with the kids is an important step. "You actually need to be able to understand the technology, how a game is played, the joy your child may actually receive from feeling triumphant at correctly beating a level or a bad guy" in a video game.
The other is to pay attention to the game rating system. Huntemann notes that the system "is seen by both the government and many consumer organizations as being one of the best rating systems available in terms of guidance toward or away from certain content."
The bottom line, she says, is "parents have to be diligent."Lest all video games be tarred with the same brush, it should be noted that some can lead to improvements in both physical and mental health.
