Exposure to violent media like video games, could negatively affect the health-related behaviour in young men. Researchers from the University of California, USA, found that parents should be made aware that violent video games and violent media in general increase the likelihood that their children will be aggressive. Violent video games could also increase the risk-taking behaviour. Other researchers from the University of Pittsburgh also found that young men were more likely to see others' attitudes toward them as hostile if they had just played a violent game. The researchers analysed a group of 100 male undergraduates aged 18 to 21 years, who played either Grand Theft Auto III or The Simpsons: Hit and Run. In the Simpsons game, players took the role of Homer Simpson and their task was to deliver daughter Lisa's science project to school before it could be marked late. In Grand Theft Auto III, players took the role of a criminal, and were instructed by the Mafia to beat up a drug dealer with a baseball bat. Playing the violent game boosted young men's blood pressures, and appeared to have more of an effect on those who came from more violent homes or communities. In this game, the depiction of the violent task is quite realistic. When they strike the person with the bat, the person crumples to the ground and a pool of blood starts to expand slowly underneath the body. The more blows the player gives, the wider the pool of blood. For youth who had been previously exposed to real violence, the game may have seemed more real. Regardless of whether they grew up in a violent environment, young men who played the violent game were less cooperative and more competitive in completing an assigned task with another person, as compared to those who played the Simpsons game. They were also more likely to have permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use. Parents should be aware of the type of video games their children are playing, and children themselves should understand that violent games could change the way they think.
Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine,
April 2006