New Studies Show No Casual Link Between Virtual and Real World Violence

Two new studies coming from researchers in the United States and in Sweden suggest that there is no causal link between the exposure to violent video games and changes in behavior in the real world.

Professor Christopher Ferguson and a team of researchers at the Texas A&M International University have published a new study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research that found no link between virtual violence in the form of video games and changes in youth aggression levels or dating violence.

The study worked with 165 young people who were between 10 and 14 years and were watched over a period of three years, with the parameters taken into accounts including “violent video game exposure as well as antisocial personality traits, family attachment and delinquent peers; exposure to domestic violence; depression and mental health; and instances of dating violence”.

The researchers have found that the most important factors when it comes to aggression were family violence, peer influence, depression and anti-social personality traits.

Another study, launched in December by the Sweden based Media Council, has looked at more than 100 studies that were published in international scientific journals for the last 11 years and found that the there is no clear evidence proving that aggressive behavior is being caused by exposure to violent video games.

The Swedish report also found that for those studies which showed a causal link a number of methodological problems were apparent, including problems with how the answers were evaluated and way only one single point in time was used to establish a causal link.

The media tends to report on those studies that sensationalize the issue and show links between playing violent games and real world attacks but the science suggests that this is just a fringe phenomenon and should not be a concern for most of those who love and enjoy games.