Almost everyone at some point in their lives has played a video game. Whether it was at the arcades as a child, a giant grey brick of a Gameboy, ANY of the very entertaining Nintendo systems; to modern day versions of PlayStation and XBOX. Along with video games, the pop culture surrounding all these electronics evolves. Movies and television shows that show graphic content are readily available on even the more “innocently viewed” streaming services such as HULU and Netflix. Big box office hits follow the formula of the bigger the action the better and the more money these companies can make. The music industry is at a consistent fault in the eyes of many for those who do not understand genres, or life experiences that are put into records to make money for producers, record labels, and artists.
But For now let me focus on Video Games. We’re talking about the contention that the violence that people act upon is directly related to the video games they play. According to the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, it has been studied that long-term aggression levels in adults is NOT directly related. This study does however resurface the information that has been acknowledged by previous studies involving molecular psychiatry, video gaming, and behavioral studies for those who play video games. It has been acknowledged, “Previous experimental studies have shown that a few minutes' worth of violent video game play can influence a person's levels of aggression and willingness to help others. There is however reason to believe that these effects were mostly the results of exposure to specific stimuli and subsequent priming that formed part of these studies.” [Kuhn 2019]
It is detrimental to think about the environmental stimuli and pre exposure that occurs in these studies that lead up to the actual gathering and analysis of data.
That is not to discount the studies that focus on the effects of desensitization of violent scenarios and game play.
My absolute favorite video game genre to play by myself must be fighter games. Mortal Kombat is one of the video games that is loaded up into my XBOX 75% of the time. I even go all out and pre order the bundles that come with collectibles MKX came with a fantastic Scorpion collectible I LOVED IT. I play it because outside of the open world, and mission-based video games that I play (Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, etc) MK is the only game I am good at. Am I desensitized? Absolutely. The years that I have spent on this game have piqued my interest, “how could they possibly top the last one?”, after all the point to the fight is to be able to use your Fatalities at the end. They are disturbing the first one or two times, and then the novelty of the graphic design team wears off and I continue through the storyline and various challenges. Is this a bad thing? Does this mean I am going to become a violent aggressive person? Do I lack empathy? Will this change my mood? The answer is simple, it's going to be a no from me dawg.
Research shows that desensitization to violence in response to short-term exposure to violent media also seems to be reversible. In one study, participants who viewed three sexually violent films showed physiological and emotional desensitization to violence (Mullin & Linz, 1995). However, it has been studied that you can re-sensitize, and it can occur within 5 days of exposure. In contrast, long-term media violence use can lead to lasting consequences. For example, habitual video gamers display a reduced brain response while viewing violence, indicating chronic desensitization to violence (Bartholow, Bushman et al., 2005; Gentile, Swing, Anderson, Rinker, & Thomas, in press).
Video game damnation also has a lot to do with age, says one researcher. Psychology professor Dr. Christopher Ferguson, of Stetson University interviewed over 100 clinicians who work with children and family care services. One of the questions asked (of clinicians of varying ages) was “how many hours of video games have you played in the past 6 months?”. The answer for 40.0% of those who were asked place blame on video games and violent aggressions in children, and their response was “0 hours”.
[Most of the clinicians surveyed who have a hostile view towards video games are older and most of the clinicians surveyed are not gamers, reporting that they played zero hours of video games a week in the last six months. Dr. Ferguson says there is a generational effect at play.
"Older people who are parents or grandparents don't tend to use new media, such as video games, and they often only see clips of its worst examples, so they believe there is some potential to cause harm," said Dr. Ferguson. "The young people who use the new media don't buy into this, but no one listens to them because they're kids."
Dr. Ferguson suggests that to minimize the generation gap effect, parents could talk to their children about video games, and even try them out. "Ask kids why they like playing these games, and play them yourself," he suggests. "Direct experience will give you much better insight than a 20 second clip on Fox News."] Elsevier
1. Elsevier. (2015, August 19). Research reveals link between age and opinions about video games. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 13, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150819092603.htm
2. Frontiers. (2017, March 8). Violent video games found not to affect empathy: Study finds no link between long-term playing of violent video games and changes in empathetic neural responses. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 16, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170308081057.htm
3. Springer. (2018, March 14). Daily dose of violent video games has no long-term effect on adult aggression, researchers find: First long-term study finds no link between violent video game play and increased levels of aggression in adults. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 15, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180314102008.htm