Video games and child aggression: a research overview

Video Games, Violence, Aggression and Exhaustion: The Making of a Violent Child

The research study in this document will focus on the theory of the affects of children playing video games who demonstrate a high level of aggression. The thesis upon which this proposed study will be based will hold that video games have the potential to become the objects of obsession, or addiction, and that children fail to recognize their own physicality in relation to the addiction and become consumed with an exhausted aggressive behavior that does not give in the child's need for other sources of stimulation, nutrition, socialization, and focus.

This study will rely upon the experiments conducted by scholars and specialists in various professional disciplines whose research and experiment outcomes are analyzed for inclusion in this paper in support of the hypothesis that video games are the source of an obsessive addiction that causes children to experience a physical exhausted aggression that results in heightened aggressive responses to otherwise normal and noninvasive stimuli. The exhaustion and aggression result in a diminished capacity and children suffering this condition cannot be held accountable for the danger they pose to others, or the harm they inflict upon others when in this exhausted heightened state of aggression arising out of their obsessive addiction. Further, that the manifestation of the aggression is one that is reflective of the aggressive nature or violent images which have occupied a socially abnormal and unacceptable amount of the child's life and time.

Video Games, Violence, Aggression and Exhaustion: The Making of a Violent Child

Introduction

The popularity of video games and technology in contemporary modern culture is one that has the potential to be one of the most useful academic tools ever conceived. Unfortunately, the move from home entertainment to the classroom, and using the video game in a more constructive, productive and academic manner has been slow. That is perhaps because the industry is one geared towards profit, not education. There is much more profit to be earned in marketing to the entertainment needs of the American family, most notably by way of keeping American children, entertained and causing them to be less conspicuous in the lives of adults. Video games have supplanted the television as the current "babysitter" for children in the American family. While surrendering parenting to technology has never been a good idea, it is even more of a concern today in consideration of the "babysitter." Video games do not provide June Cleaver mother figures, or Father Knows Best male role models.

This research study proposes to examine the affects of video games and child aggression using the existing body of research and experiments in the area of research topic to support the hypothesis that video games lead to a heightened state of aggressive exhaustion in young children, causing them to suffer a diminished capacity that prevents them to be unaware of their aggressive state, which could be potentially harmful to others.

It is important to this study to utilize the existing scholarly body of research and experiment to demonstrate that this is a long standing condition being suffered by children as a result of over exposure to video games and video game violence. The study will show that there exists in current studies, experiments and literature evidence to suggest that the hypothesis is proven, and that this proof has gone unacknowledged, even refuted, by legal authorities.

A newspaper article appearing in the Daily Mail (2005) discusses studies existing studies providing evidence of the harmful effects that television (film) and video violence has on children. The article cited a study that showed that teenagers with no previous history of aggression suffered from loss of control and poor decision making after being exposed to violent images. Dr. Michelle Elliott was quoted in the article as saying, 'This will strike a chord with every parent. You can't feed children a diet of violence without an effect. The video game industry keeps saying there isn't but you can't think that bad things don't influence children. I hope they take notice of this.' The research follows last year's outcry over the ultraviolent game Manhunt, which was implicated in the savage murder of a teenage boy (2005, p. 16)."

The number of "hits" that a search engine query generates on the keywords: violence, video game, juvenile, ranges in the thousands, reflecting the many books, peer reviewed professional journal publications, magazine articles and newspaper stories on the subject. There is a wide interest, unfortunately little action taken to minimize the effects of viewing violence by young children and teenagers.

Researchers Robert V. Hickel and David Schumacher (2001), in their book Children Who Murder, present their research on children who murder. The authors say that information on the subject is not well coordinated, that while numerous studies exist, the statistical information has not been compiled or studied in a way that spotlights the widespread and severe and tragic impact that violent video games and films (the industry does not differentiate between the mediums, but group them together under "media). The authors say:

statistics are currently available on our target group, preteen murderers. When we ask "Who are they, these preteens who commit murders?" we may believe the obvious answer is to be found by simple consulting of official statistics from state and federal agencies and searching through published reports in professional journals. Unfortunately, as this chapter will describe, state and federal sources often fail to discriminate between age groups for those under 18, despite some very obvious logical groupings used in descriptions of young persons: Schools, for example, separate between grade, middle, and high schools. Developmental psychologists used landmark events such as physical maturation (puberty, cognitive ability, moral reasoning, causality, etc.) to reflect different levels of functioning (2001, p. 3)."

This study will pull together the existing body of disjointed information, as described by Hickel and Schumacher, to understand what that body of information, put into the proper categorical perspectives yields as the information pertains to violent video games. It is the hypothesis of this study that the information will reveal the enormity of the problem concerning the effects of video game violence on young children and teens.

In his book, the World is Watching: Video as Multinational Aesthetics, Dennis Redmond (2004) describes the intense pursuit of not just video games, but the competition to deliver new, different, and more sensor provoking games this way:

This enthusiasm is by no means the product of some dubious marketing blitz but testifies to one of the most intriguing aspects of video culture, its bedrock plebianism. As we shall see, the greatest video works combine the aesthetic power and complexity of the twentieth-century modernisms with the popular appeal and revolutionary panache of the great eighteenth- and nineteenth-century realisms (2004, p. 1)."

Journalist Noreen Herzfeld (2004), writing for the Christian Century, writes:

Exposure to simulated violence and death desensitizes people, lowering inhibitions and making it easier to commit violence in the real world. Video games romanticize violence and equate it with personal power and achievement. Some include "back stories" that explain the characters and their motivations. Revenge is a common feature, and the stories foster the notion that violence as payback is justifiable. Nick Yee, a student in communications, notes that "it's hard to have an in-game and out-game moral compass.... When you play the game, your moral compass gets influenced and impacted by your decisions." Though one does not kill real people, one gets used to the concept of killing. From a Kantian or utilitarian ethical perspective, one has neither used nor hurt another person. But virtue ethics warns us that one's character is formed by one's habits. First-person shooter games present the world in adversarial terms and inure players to violence (2004, p. 22)."

It is important for the study to be balanced by presenting the ideas and data of studies that have been conducted to disprove the thesis of this study proposed study. To that end, the study will take into consideration those opposing studies and data. A 2003 Washington Times articles notes the lack of consensus among professionals, and especially between the mental health professionals and legal professionals, as to the harmfulness of video games. The article said:

In the wake of congressional hearings about industry standards, the IDSA in 1994 established the Entertainment Software Rating Board, a self-regulatory body that applies ratings, advertising guidelines and online privacy principles that are adopted by the industry.

The two-part grading system comprises rating symbols, which suggest the age group most appropriate for specific game use, and content descriptors, which list content elements that may be of interest or concern to consumers (2003, p. D01)."

What the article emphasizes is that there is lack of consensus on the subject, and that the lack of consensus might be motivated by other than the best interest of the children suffering from the effects of video game viewing and violence. This is yet another facet or perspective that the research will have to deal with and examine the existing data on to ensure that the hypothesis that forms the basis of this proposed study is in fact supported by the overall body of data, and not disputed by it.

Methodology

The methodology that will be employed in this study will be a desk survey of existing studies. The data complied by the studies will be analyzed, as will be the processes and methodology used in those studies. The data compilation and yield will be discussed in comparison between studies, and an attempt will be made to take the information and use it in an overall presentation that shows that the data yields produced the same outcomes, demonstrating and supporting the hypothesis of this study.