How Influential are Violent Video Games?
In one of their studies, Anderson and Dill discovered that "young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games." Therefore, people with anger and aggressive physical problems are susceptible to violent video games as they encourage and raise testosterone, due to the fact the games are more real and are intended to evoke aggressive feelings. "The other study reveals that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants." By playing for a short period of time, players are filled with a growing need to express their violence and channel their aggression through different ways.
Anderson and Dill's first study
Anderson and Dill's second study
In the second study, 210 college students played either a violent or nonviolent video game. A short time later, the students who played the violent video game punished an opponent (received a noise blast with varying intensity) for a longer period of time than did students who had played the nonviolent video game.
In review of the study , Dr Anderson states how "Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations." As a result , violent video games are more effective in teaching players how to react to situations in conflict, therefore they learn useful self defence skills in the real world. Also, the study states that "In the short run, playing a violent video game appears to affect aggression by priming aggressive thoughts. Longer-term effects are likely to be longer lasting as well, as the player learns and practices new aggression-related scripts that can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise." Effectively, as the player progresses onto the higher levels, they are educated on how to react to more realistic and dangerous situations. Here, the players' aggression levels rise, as they have to adapt to complex situations, which could potentially be useful in real life, therefore they are effective in that sense.
Yet, violent video games are still not received positively by some audiences, as the researchers conclude that "One major concern is the active nature of the learning environment of the video game." The constant exposure to violence fails to have an educational aspect, as games such as Grand Theft Auto rely on the player to carry out crime and killing. "This medium is potentially more dangerous than exposure to violent television and movies, which are known to have substantial effects on aggression and violence." In contrast to movies and television programmes which use violence to respond to public concern, violent video games are quite the opposite as they use violence as a means to channel aggression and to enable the audience to have complete freedom in terms of moral values.
http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/article/video-game
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