Are violent video games harmless?

While some have found a correlation between violent video game use and increased aggressiveness, other studies have found no such effect. He added that studies have revealed that violent games have not created a generation of troubled young people. But from a more positive point of view, Pamela Kato, from the University Medical Center of Utrecht (The Netherlands), demonstrated in her research that specially designed games can help prevent asthma attacks and facilitate pain control and the treatment of diabetes. After the protesters removed the Death Race machines from the game rooms and burned them in the parking lots, production of the game ceased.

That's a drawback, he points out, because researchers still can't tell if violent games make teens more aggressive over time. In 1993, public outcry following the launch of the violent video games Mortal Kombat and Night Trap prompted Congress to hold hearings on the regulation of the sale of video games. One was a direct relationship in which teenagers who spent more time playing violent video games were more aggressive. Academics at York University say they haven't found “any evidence that video games make gamers more violent.” Patrick Markey, from Villanova University in Pennsylvania, discovered in a study of 118 adolescents that certain personality traits can predict which children will be negatively influenced by video games.

The other was a “turning point”, signs that teenagers were more aggressive, but only after spending a certain threshold of time playing violent games. The objective of the game was to run over those who shouted “gremlins” with a car, at which point they became tombstones. If someone gets angry, depressed, and emotional easily, or is indifferent to other people's feelings, breaks rules, and doesn't keep their promises, they're more likely to be hostile after playing violent video games. The controversy arose because the “gremlins” looked like humans with stick figures, and it was reported that the game's working title was Pedestrian.

Studies consistently conclude that “the long-term effects of violent games on juvenile aggression are almost zero,” they write. During the hearings, California Attorney General Dan Lungren stated that violent video games have “a desensitizing impact on young and impressionable minds.” In a special issue of the journal Review of General Psychology published by the American Psychological Association, researchers said that games can also help control diabetes and pain and work as a tool to complement psychotherapy.

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