Gaming and Anger

Violent games do not create violent children. There. I said it.
A good researcher reports findings that support his or her position,
as well as those that fly in its face. The October 2009 issue of Issues in Mental Health Nursing contains an article titled “Young Children’s Video/Computer Game Use: Relations with School Performance and Behavior” by Erin Hastings at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL, and Tamra Karas, Adam Winsler, Erin Way, Amy Madigan and Shannon Tyler, all from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. As always, the abstract:

This study examined the amount and content of children’s
video game playing in relation with behavioral and academic outcomes.
Relationships among playing context, child gender, and parental
monitoring were explored. Data were obtained through parent report of
child’s game play, behavior, and school performance. Results revealed
that time spent playing games was related positively to aggression and
negatively to school competence. Violent content was correlated
positively and educational content negatively with attention problems.
Educational games were related to good academic achievement. Results
suggest violent games, and a large amount of game play, are related to
troublesome behavioral and academic outcomes, but educational games may
be related to positive outcomes. Neither gender nor parental monitoring
emerged as significant moderators of these effects.

There is a fairly sizable collection of research that supports the
claim that violent video games (or television, for that matter) are
related to higher levels of aggression, both in children and adults.
However, speaking frankly, this is akin to saying that owning many
books is directly, causally related to a high frequency of reading.
There is very little support for a direct causal link between violent gaming and violent behavior. Reciprocation is more likely; a feedback loop. Violent is as violent does.
It’s important to remember–and I say this with all sincerity–that
the most important aspect of a child’s development is the parents. No
amount of video game or television curtailing by watchdog groups is
ever, ever going to replace the effects of just one good parent. If a
parent truly believes that violent video games will turn his or her
child into a raving, homicidal maniac, then guess what: be an adult and
say No to that child. Parental responsibility is nothing to be shrugged
at. Television producers and game designers are not out to make
upstanding paragons of civility out of your children; they’re out to
make money by producing consumer-based materials that people buy. Two
things sell, unequivocally: sex and violence. That math isn’t hard to
do.
An interesting aspect of research like this is the number of variables involved. In just the article there are:

• Gender
  
• Age
  
• GPA
  
• School competence
  
• Time playing games
  
• Violence level of games
  
• Parental monitoring of content
  
• Parental monitoring of time
  
• Social context
  
• Previous behavior of child
  
• Media type
  

Any researcher worth his or her salt, given that list of factors,
would never try to make a causal link out of all that. This is not to
say the authors did; I’m just pointing it out. The authors list a
number of limitations on their study, as per usual in academic articles
(all citations found on page 646 and are not found immediately
following one another):

First is the fact that only parents reported on their child’s video/computer game playing habits.
In addition, parents may misreport the amount of monitoring that they actually do.
Finally, to obtain child grades, parents were permitted to either
(a) submit a grade report from school, or (b) report their child’s
grades. It is conceivable that the self-report option may have
introduced some error, presumably due to parents inflating grades to
enhance their child’s academic standing.
Also, our sample was limited to generally high-achieving children
from relatively well-educated, mostly middle- to upper-class families,
Another limitation is the correlational and exploratory nature of
the study. Although links among game playing and children’s aggression
and academic achievement were found, the direction of the causality is
unclear. It is likely that, as previously mentioned, the relationship
between aggression and violent media is reinforcing.
When splitting the sample to analyze by gender, [the limitation of a
small sample size] became clearer, as correlations that were
significant overall with the enter sample only approached significance
when the sample size was halved to look at boys and girls separately.

It is not my intent to rip apart this article and I apologize if it
comes across that way. However, I feel it’s important to point out that
when
articles like this are published (that show a correlation between one
thing and another) it’s all too easy for people to that correlation to causation and
assume a causal link. We’ve all seen the Tipper Gores and Zackery
Morazzinis and even the Hillary Clintons hell-bent on preventing
violent video games from falling into the hands of impressionable,
moldable youth.
It reminds me of an old George Carlin bit: “It’s
a great country, but it’s a strange culture. This is a country where
gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a
list of criminals and maniacs! Where tobacco kills millions of people
every year, so they ban artificial sweeteners! Because a rat died! And
now they’re thinking about banning toy guns . . . AND THEY’RE GOING TO
KEEP THE FUCKING REAL ONES!”
Coming up next: addiction.
Citation:

Hastings, E. C., Karas, T. L., Winsler, A.,
Way, E., Madigan, A., & Tyler, S. (2009). Young Children’s
Video/Computer Game Use: Relations with School Performance and
Behavior. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 30(10), 638. doi: 10.1080/01612840903050414.








http://games.anamericanintaiwan.com/2009/09/17/gaming-and-anger/