Are Violent Video
Games Negatively Effecting Adolescents?
By Brandon Arp
For decades researchers have been
studying the effect violent video games have on adolescents. There have been
arguments as to whether or not the video games make adolescents more aggressive
and if moral disengagement comes into play. The topic continues to come up
after tragic shootings in Norway and the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
Researchers expect violent video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft
Auto among others are factors in negatively effecting the people involved.
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| Call of Duty 4 |
Anders Behring Breivik is a Norwegian
citizen who is currently sentenced to 21 years preventative detention which is
the maximum penalty in Norway. The penalty allows for extensions to his time in
preventative detention for as long as he is deemed a danger to society. Breivik
is in prison for the killing of 77 people by means of a car bomb and the use of
a semi-automatic 9 mm Glock 17 pistol as well as a semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14
rifle back in 2011. Breivik stated that he used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for “training-simulation”. Adam
Peter Lanza lived in Newtown Connecticut and had briefly attended Sandy Hook
Elementary. On December 14th, 2012, Lanza shot his mother, Nancy
Lanza, at their home. He then traveled to Sandy Hook Elementary and killed 26
students and faculty before killing himself. An article by the New York Daily
News on March 17, 2013, provided details by an anonymous law enforcement who
had attended a meeting of the International Association of Police Chiefs and
Coronels held during the week of March 11, 2013. The source stated that the
investigation had found the Lanza had created a 7-by-4 foot sized spreadsheet
listing mass murders and weapons they used. Lanza was using the spreadsheet as
a type of score sheet when keeping track of murders. It is believed Lanza did
extensive research into shootings such as the 2011 Norway attacks carried out
by Breivik. In more documents released by the investigation it is shown that
Lanza spent significant amounts of time playing Call of Duty.
The two mass shootings above are
extreme cases of violence and violent video games are just part of what might
have caused such horrific events, but what do violent video games do to
increase the aggressive nature of people and help in the moral disengagement
that allows for people to do harmful things? Take a look at the Grand Theft Auto (popularly called GTA) video games that have been produced. Players are encouraged
and rewarded for the killing of other people as well as performing other
illegal activities such as drug dealing or armed robbery. Research has been
done to see what effects this game has on adolescents. One of the procedures
was to have volunteer participants fill out a questionnaire measuring several
different constructs. Questions asked how often they played video games, had
they ever played GTA, how often they
played GTA (if they answered yes to
playing GTA), and when the last time
they had played GTA if they had
played it. Participants then completed an adapted version of the moral
disengagement scale. The scale measured moral justification, advantageous
comparison, diffusion responsibility, distorting consequences, and
dehumanization. The results showed that playing violent video games such as GTA may increase adolescents’ moral
disengagement in real situations. Playing violent video games helped
adolescents justify real-life immoral conducts.
Most
adolescents aren’t acting out immorally in real-life on a regular basis. Video
games are increasing the likelihood that they might start that behavior.
Considering adolescents know that what they do in video games such as GTA is considered immoral and would be
more than frowned upon in real life, why do adolescents continue to play these
games? Researchers have found what they call the “Macbeth effect”. Researchers
claim that “The ‘Macbeth effect’ denotes the phenomenon that people wish to
cleanse themselves physically when their moral self has been threatened. In
this article we argue that such a threat to one's moral self may also result
from playing a violent video game, especially when the game involves violence
against humans.” (Macbeth and the Joystick). Researchers have participants play
two different video games. FlatOut 2
is a racing video game that has its most violent aspect centered on a
demolition derby. The demolition derby doesn’t involve violence directly toward
a human. The other video game is GTA
which rewards players for violence against humans. Participants are assigned to
randomly play one of the two games. After playing the game, the participants are
asked whether or not they felt guilty about having played the game. The researchers
were trying to find out if the players felt morally distressed after playing
either game. The results of the experiment showed that a player’s moral
distress increased after playing GTA
more than after playing FlatOut 2.
Researchers also found that players that didn’t frequently play violent video
games felt even more distressed than players who frequently played violent
video games. This result told researchers that frequent violent video game
players had ways to overcome immoral distress felt while playing the game.
Researchers asked the participants to select a “gift” after they played one of
the video games. The players that felt a lot of immoral distress selected a
hygiene product whereas the players that didn’t have that immoral distress
selected a non-hygienic product. The results showed that the “Macbeth effect”
was a real phenomenon. The player’s felt they needed to cleanse themselves
after playing an immoral and violent video game.
It has
long been said that violent video games increase aggression in adolescents. The
research being done shows results in the short-term more than the long-term.
There was a study done where aggression was measured over a relatively longer period
of time (3 days) compared to 1 day in other experiments. The experiment had
participants play either a violent or a non-violent video game. The violent
video games were Condemned 2, Call of
Duty 4, and The Club. The
non-violent video games were S3k
Superbike, Dirt 2, and Pure. The participants would play either a violent
video game for 20 minutes a day for three straight days or a non-violent video
game for 20 minutes a day for 3 straight days. After each session the
participants, “completed one of three ambiguous story stems each day (Dill et
al. 1997). For example, in one story a driver crashes into the back of the main
character's car, causing a lot of damage to both vehicles. After surveying the
damage, the main character approaches the other driver. Participants are asked:
‘What happens next? List 20 things that the (main character) will do or say,
think, and feel as the story continues.’” (The More you Play, the More
Aggressive you Become). Each day the participant who had played the violent video
game would answer with increasingly aggressive answers whereas the non-violent
video game player did not have increasingly aggressive answers.
Observers
ask if violent media such as violent video games are the cause of violent such
as rape or murder and it is impossible to completely blame violent media as the
cause of such violence because it would be unethical to perform an experiment
like that in the laboratory. The best experiments that can be done are
experiments that don’t actually hurt an individual. The experiments just
measure the level of aggression or the lack of moral distress. It is easy to
see from some of these experiments that as adolescents continue to play violent
video games; they become increasingly aggressive and find it easier to
disengage from the moral boundaries put up in real-life. These findings are
something that need to be tested further to see just how disengaged an
adolescent might become after an extended amount of time playing violent video
games such as Call of Duty or GTA.
The
chances of violent video games being outlawed seems slim and violent video
games don’t need to be outlawed. Adolescents need to be kept from playing
violent video games an overextended amount of time. If adolescents are limited
on the amount of time they play a violent video game then they will learn to
keep violence in the video games and keep a strong moral compass in real-life.
As the adolescent continues to play violent video games an increasing amount
then the adolescent could subconsciously learn to use violence in real-life mimicking
the violence in video games.
Works Cited
“Anders Behring Breivik” Wikipedia.
2011. Web.
“Children and Video Games: Playing with Violence” American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Web. March 2011.
“Children and Violent Video Games” Dr. Phil. Web. 2012
“Does Exposure to Violent Video Games Increase Moral
Disengagement among Adolescents? Journal
of Adolescence. Print. Journal
35, Issue 5. October 2012. Pages 1403-1406.
“Macbeth and the Joystick” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Print. Volume 48, Issue
6, November
2012, Pages 1356-1360.
“Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting” Wikipedia. Web. 2012.
“The Impact of Violent Video Games: An Overview” Growing up Fast and Furious: Reviewing the
Impacts of Violent and
Sexualised Media on Children. Print. Pages 56-84.
“The More you Play, the More Aggressive you Become” Journal of Experimental Social psychology.
Print. Volume 49, Issue 2, March 2013,
Pages 224-227.
“Violent Video Games are a Risk Factor for Criminal Behavior
and Aggression, New Evidence Shows” Science News. Web. 26 March 2013.
“Violent Video Games: The Effects on Youth and Public Policy
Implications” Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence. Print.
2006. Pages 225-246.
