Video Games, Aggression, and

Risky Behavior
In the short term, it’s fairly easy to measure the effects of violent video
games: set a group of people down, have them play a violent or nonviolent
game, then measure the results. A slew of studies have found that in
comparison to nonviolent or prosocial video games, violent
games promote feelings of hostility and aggression, desensitize the player
to violence, and skew the player’s perception of what constitutes violence.

Do these effects last long-term? To find out, scientists ran longitudinal

studies, tracking how children’s video game use changed over time, and
with it, measures of aggression. One study tracked more than 3,000 kids
for three years and found that playing violent video games increased their
impulsiveness. In a vicious cycle, higher base levels of impulsiveness
increased their video game use. A second study on the same set of kids
also found increases in aggression.

“We know that violence in general ... is associated with mental health
problems. We also know, given brain research, that our brain
sometimes doesn’t distinguish between what’s real and what we see
on TV.” — Susan Tortolero, University of Texas

Another study published this year tracked 5,000 teenagers for four years
and found that playing Mature-rated video games predicted later risky
behaviors.

“Play of these Mature-rated, risk glorifying games was associated with

subsequent increases in sensation seeking, rebelliousness, hanging out
with kids who smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, thinking kids who drink
and smoke are cool, and thinking that one would like to try drinking and
smoking,” explained Jay Hull, department chair of psychological and brain
sciences at Dartmouth College, in an interview with Healthline. “In turn,
changes in these variables were associated with subsequent changes in
drinking, smoking, fighting, risky sex, and delinquent behavior.”

The effects were much stronger among kids who played violent games with
an antisocial protagonist (i.e. “Grand Theft Auto III,” “Manhunt”) than with a
heroic protagonist (i.e. “Spider-Man 2”).

Another studyTrusted Source by Susan Tortolero, director of the Center for

Health Promotion and Prevention Research at the University of Texas,
examined the link between violent video game play and depression.

“We know that violence in general — whether it’s being a victim of violence,
or just witnessing violence — is associated with mental health problems,”
she told Healthline. “We also know, given brain research, that our brain
sometimes doesn’t distinguish between what’s real and what we see on
TV.”

She found that playing more than two hours a day of violent video games is
linked much more strongly with depression than playing less than two
hours a day of nonviolent video games.

However, other studies didn't find any such negative effect, or they found
that the effect goes in the opposite direction. One study followed 324
elementary school children for a year. It found that children who were
aggressive at the beginning of the study were more likely to have grown to
prefer bloody or brutal video games by the end of the study, suggesting
that innate aggression can lead to violent video game use. Violent video
game playing, on the other hand, didn't predict later
aggression. Another study followed 302 kids for one year and found no
connection between video game violence and aggression, violent crime, or
bullying behaviors.

Criminologist Ray Surette of the University of Central

Florida researched the video-game-playing habits of 249 inmates in a
county jail. He found that video game playing did not predict who had
committed copycat crimes. However, he did find that the degree of
immersion in media (regardless of type) did predict copycat crime.