Introduction
A very controversial issue among video game players is how playing violent video games contribute to aggressive behavior and problems in school for the youths. Video games provide a unique way for adolescents to entertain themselves. Non-violent games are found to be cognitively stimulating and help in increasing and improving learning, problem solving skills, and perceptual motor skills. These games allow the youth to become part of the story behind the online games they play as they embody the attributes of characters they choose. Unlike the old video games, contemporary video games are more refined and sophisticated that it requires gamers to allot their 100 percent attention to the game. When playing, gamers tend to invest not only on the physical, but also on the emotional as they engage in the games on a deeper level. When an individual plays violent video games, there is strong indication that it increases aggression, hostile behaviors, and antagonistic thoughts on the individual, while playing games that espouse positivity results to positive behavior and thinking. Thus, playing video games can generate varying results depending on the type of video games youths play.
For this paper, what I want to study is whether there indeed is a correlation between playing violent video games and its supposed resulting effects, that is, a tendency towards aggressive behavior and effects on youths’ performance in school.
Literature Review
Evidence supports the idea that adolescents who play violent video games are affected subconsciously as demonstrated by “increases [in] levels of cognitive, affective, and behavioral aggression and decreases [in] levels of prosocial behavior” (qtd. in Hollingdale & Greitemeyer 1862). In recent years, the way computer games are designed have drastically changed from something individualistic and static into something that offers potential interaction and socialization with fellow gamers who use avatars or identities. However, in terms of actual social interaction with real people, video games do not necessarily provide that kind of interface.
Hollingdale & Greitemeyer (2013) asserts that video game players are allowed to create their own personalized avatars, which also leads to “increases in levels of aggression within socially acceptable forms of violence” (1862). The authors found out that those players who created their own avatars displayed more aggressive behaviors as compared with those who played the same video game, but only used generic or non-violent looking avatars. Using the general aggression model (GAM), which contends that situational inputs can influence an individual’s cognition, affect, and arousal, the authors were able to prove that playing with a personalized avatar increased levels of aggression as the individual began to identify with the character. This is in contrast with players who used generic characters or non-threatening avatars, who, despite playing a violent game, did not display aggressive behavior.
Cunningham, Engelstatter, & Ward (2016) recognize the assertions of Hollingdale and Greitemeyer pertaining to the impact of violent video games to adolescents. But the authors also believed that most often, the reaction of adolescents towards violent video games are on a short-term basis only, which is in reference to the amount of time the youths spend playing the video games. The time use explanation pertains to “possible short-run decrease in violence if individuals substitute away from riskier outdoor leisure to indoor leisure, but allows for a possible long-run increase in violence as predicted by GAM” (1249). The authors further studied the number of releases of video game products in the market, including the upgraded versions, and compared with the number of crimes associated with youths. According to results, during the time the violent video games were released, the crime rate also decreased, thus, adding credence to their findings.
Burgess, Stermer, & Burgess (n.d.) examined the likelihood of playing violent games as a contributory factor to violent behavior and found out that there is a negative correlation between violent video games and studies. The authors found out that generally, those who played video games had lower GPAs than those who did not play as much. Additionally, students admitted that most of the time, the reason they play video games was to avoid doing their assignments. Based on their studies, TV and other forms of media used to be the main form of entertainment for students that has caused parents and teachers to raise their concern over the students’ academic performance. However, as video games became more prevalent, the same concerns were raised by parents despite the students belonging to the generation of youths who grew up playing video games since childhood. According to the authors’ study, playing violent video games do not necessarily cause students to receive low grades in school. They also found out that men are more likely to get lower grades because they have a stronger preference in playing violent video games as compared to women, although there are also women who prefer to play these types of video games. Rather, the situation is more of a causal effect where due to the students’ preference to play video games instead of doing their homework or anything school related, they spend more time playing video games. Thus, displaying aggressive behaviors are part of the risks of playing violent video games but are not directly related to students’ education results.
Another study tended to refute other authors’ claims about the correlation between playing violent video games and aggressive behavior. Ferguson (2011) claims that there are other factors that account to why adolescents display aggressive behavior other than playing violent video games. For instance, those who display depressive behaviors are more inclined to choose violent video games over neutral and safe video games. Ferguson (2011) points out three possible theoretical views as to why aggressive behavior and violent video games are being connected to each other. The first view is called the “causal” view, which says exposure to violence in video games causes aggressive behavior. The author points out that this belief is deeply rooted on Bandura’s Social Learning theory where children learn and adapt according to what they see adults do or based on environmental factors, such as the place they grew up with. The second view is called “priori aggression”, which could lead to widespread use of violent video games. As the author pointed out, factors such as depression, negative life events, family violence, and bullying, among others, may be considered as contributory factors as to why some youths choose to play violent video games. Finally, the author says that while there may be a very small correlation between aggression and use of violent video games, the correlation is too small and is mostly due to other factors instead of a direct relationship between the two. For instance, boys are more predisposed to playing violent video games because they are used to rough and aggressive play during childhood as compared to girls. Thus, in this case, gender helps in influencing boys into playing video games that are more violent in nature. Additionally, youths who suffer from mental health problems or antisocial personality traits tend to choose violent video games over other types of video games. Ferguson (2011) further claims that use of violent video games is also rampant even among non-violent youths, specifically boys.
Methodology
In examining the impact or influence of violent video games on youths, including the effects of playing such games in adolescents’ performance in school, my research methodology requires collecting relevant data and information from scholarly journals, documents, and websites in order to analyze the material and arrive at a clear and comprehensive understanding of the correlation between violent video games and aggressive behavior in youths. Sources will come from reliable academic journals such as Journal of Youth and Adolescents, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, College Student Journal, Education and Health, and Southern Economic Journal, among others. The articles to be retrieved date back from 2002 to the current year, 2016, using the following keywords: violent video games, video games and aggressive behavior, video games and school performance, and aggressive behaviors in violent video game players.
On the other hand, the Catalyst Model espouses that individuals who have prior experience or have been exposed to violence are more prone to enjoy the violence that are embedded in computer or video games, but does not necessarily cause them to be violent. Additionally, the model foresees that game players who have pre-existing risk factors for aggression might be driven to madness or resort to insane conduct due to playing violent video games and opt for hostility and fighting to resolve problems.
Findings
An analysis of research articles and scholarly papers by Hollingdale & Greitemeyer based on 130 student participants aged 18-39 years old from both sexes revealed that their tests proved the theory as espoused by the GAM model. Based on the analysis, exposure to violent video games indeed pushes the gamers to display violence and aggressive behaviors and less sympathy and empathy in children regardless of age, gender, or culture. These violent video games bolster aggression tendencies, antagonistic thoughts and behaviors, decreased compassion towards others, and antisocial conduct (Craton). Gentile & Anderson (2006) suggests that there are “three pillars of responsibility [to this problem, such as] the video game industry, the rental and retail industry, and parents” (232).
Conversely, other investigators and authors stated that there is no direct correlation between playing video games and aggressive behaviors among video game players. Apart from conceding on the use of GAM in testing the youth’s tendencies towards violence, Cunningham, Engelstatter, & Ward (2016) also cite the influence of Bandura’s Social Learning theory, where the player develops a specific line of thinking even before a situation occurs based on what he observes in his surroundings. This results to personal biases, a propensity to interpret things the way one wants or to jump to conclusions, and even character disorders. The authors note that while aggressive behavior becomes more pronounced due to constant exposure to violent video games, the limitation of their study is that all experiments were done on “short run laboratory experiments” (1249). Furthermore, the authors cite two other possible mechanisms that lead to violent behavior. One is “catharsis”, which makes video game playing a form of release for the gamers, thus, whatever aggressive feelings or for anything that causes frustration, the resulting aggressive behavior is lessened. The other one is “incapacitation”, which is based on the amount of time expended by the gamer in video games. The authors agree that video game playing is time-intensive considering the various plots, characterizations, and obstacles a player has to overcome in order to complete a game.
Other authors, Burgess, Stermer, & Burgess (n.d.) and Ferguson (2011) stated that some studies were not conclusive considering they were flawed and lacked valid measures for adolescents’ aggression. They stipulated that when it comes to school performance, most of the students who regularly played violent video games received low grades and performed poorly in school not because of the violence displayed in the video games, but rather because of the students’ decision not to do their homework. Additionally, the authors pointed out that most of the time, the aggressive behavior displayed by adolescents are due to other factors such as child abuse and neglect, incidences of bullying, family problems, drug and alcohol abuse, and low income level, among others, and not necessarily because of their penchant for playing violent video games.
Works Cited
Burgess, Stephen R., Stermer, Steven Paul, & Burgess, Melinda C.R. “Video Game Playing and Academic Performance in College Students.” College Student Journal. (n.d.): 376-387. Print.
Craton, Jonathan. “The Effect of Videogames on Student Achievement.” 2011. Web. 5 July 2016. <http://www.acsd.org/article/the-effect-of-videogames-on-student-achievement/>.
Cunningham, Scott, Engelstatter, Benjamin, & Ward, Michael R. “Violent Video Games and Violent Crime.” Southern Economic Journal 82.4 (2016): 1247-1265. Print.
Ferguson, Christopher J. “Video Games and Youth Violence: A Prospective Analysis in Adolescents.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2011) 40: 377-391. Print.
Gentile, Douglas, A., and Anderson, Craig, A. “Violent Video Games: The Effects on Youth, and Public Policy Implications.” Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence Chapter 12 (2006): 225-246. Web. 7 July 2016. <http://ncys.ksu.edu.sa/sites/ncys.ksu.edu.sa/files/Violence%2081.pdf>.
Hollingdale, Jack, & Greitemeyer, Tobias. “The Changing Face of Aggression: The Effect of Personalized avatars in a Violent Video Game on Levels of Aggressive Behavior.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 43(2013): 1862-1868. Print.
