Do games turn kids violent?

It's Bad Faruq Hasan

It’s tough to evaluate the effects of videogames on people in general, let alone children, precisely because we don’t have enough data on a nascent industry that has been around for less than two decades. There has been some empirical research, though. A study commissioned by the US Senate in 2004 found that children who played videogames for more than two hours every day tended to be more aggressive, prone to confrontation with their teachers and peers, and would usually see a decline in school achievements. Big surprise, since most videogames actually comprise people hitting other people.   But number crunching and behavioural research aside, videogames, unlike movies or cartoons, constitute a unique mode of entertainment where viewers need to be more immersed in the medium to participate, rather than passively sit back and enjoy. Thus, you are not just watching violence on your television; you, along with your wired machine gun and mock virtual grenades, are actually committing it as well. And let’s face it, with the gaming industry as it is, videogame programmers would make substantially more money making the next instalment of the Call of Duty series, than an episode of Thomas the Engine.      Of course, videogames can also teach better hand-eye coordination, speed up our reflexes, and even instil a sense of kinship and camaraderie amongst peers. But kids used to have something better to promote all that jazz: sports.     No, not really Shah Nahian   One true fact about humans: we LOVE to play the blame game. Aggressive behaviour, bullying and delinquency among children have existed long before videogames did. Still, we try and bridge the two to put the blame on videogames.    Most studies linking videogames to violent behaviour proved to be flawed over time: the studies used outcome measures that did not include important variables such as family violence, mental health issues, etc. The most recent study, published this year in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, conducted by Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University and independent researcher Cheryl Olson (author of “Grand Theft Childhood”), came to a conclusion quite opposite to the common belief: videogames do not cause children, even those considered to be vulnerable (diagnosed with ADD, depression, etc), to become aggressive and turn into bullies, delinquents, or murderers. In fact, the study revealed that these videogames had a slight calming effect.   Another research conducted on German children by Maria von Salisch and her colleagues and published in Media Psychology, found no veritable connection between violent behaviour and videogames.    Just like anything else, but if you can strike a balance between playing videogames and your other daily activities, there should not be any problem. It would just be a part of your routine.