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David Walsh, Ph.D.
President, National Institute on Media and the Family
November 23, 1999

Concern about video game violence is not new. There were calls to ban violent games as early as 1976 when Death Race, often acknowledged as the first violent video game, appeared on the market. Of course, the violence in Death Race seems tame in comparison with today’s “first person shooters.” As technology advanced, each generation of violent games became more graphic and extreme. The addition of sexual material and crude language raised additional worries. This led Senators Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl to hold hearings and press for changes within the industry. In 1994 the industry responded by setting-up the voluntary rating system which was intended to keep the “adult games” out of the hands of children.

As the annual Report Cards issued by the National Institute on Media and the Family have shown, the most violent games still find their way into the hands of millions of children and teens. As these games became implicated in the string of recent school shootings, concern reached new heights. This report brings together some of the findings from research to determine if these concerns are justified.

The first thing we learn from the research is that it is the younger children who spend the most time playing games. According to one study, the time spent playing video and computer games peaks between the ages of 8 and 13 (Roberts, 1999). A study we completed at the National Institute on Media and the Family found a similar pattern with game playing time peaking between 8 and 15 (Gentile and Walsh, 1999). We also know that kids, especially boys, gravitate to the “action games,” which include the “first person shooters.” In one study, 50 percent of boys listed violent games as their favorites (Buchman and Funk, 1996). A growing number of children and teens now have the technological skills to customize the computer games. A recent development is putting “skins” on the characters in the games. This means that the player can insert the images of real people and places thereby making the games even more realistic. One of the Columbine High School killers had reportedly done this with the ultra-violent game, Doom (Pooley, 1999).

Many pre-teens and young teenagers therefore spend a significant amount of time playing electronic games, with a preference for the violent ones. We also know that they have easy and frequent access to increasingly violent and realistic games. The next important question is, of course, “What are the effects of this?” Because the ultra-violent games are relatively new, the research literature is just beginning to accumulate. Research findings appearing in the 1980s and early 1990s are irrelevant because those studies did not include the types of violent games that have proliferated in the past six or seven years. For the last few years most experts have pointed to the vast body of research on television violence. That research clearly shows that a heavy exposure causes negative effects on children (Walsh, Brown, and Goldman, 1996).

Because there was so little relevant research specifically focusing on electronic games, some state that there is no demonstration of harm to children. That, of course, was the same argument used to defend television violence for more than three decades. It was only after many years of research that that argument was abandoned. That argument, however, will become harder to maintain with regard to electronic games, because some important research findings are starting to appear that support the contention that the violence in computer and video games may indeed have a harmful effect.

I would like to highlight the findings of two research projects that found similar results independently. The first project was done by our collaborator Paul Lynch at the University of Oklahoma Medical School. Lynch has been studying the physiological reactions of teenagers to video games for ten years. He found that violent video games caused much greater physiological changes than non-violent games. The changes were found for heart rate and blood pressure as well as the aggression-related hormones, adrenaline, noradrenaline, and testosterone. A very important finding in Lynch’s research is that the effect was much greater for males who pre-tested high on measures of anger and hostility. In other words, the violent games do not seem to affect everyone the same. Angry youth react much more strongly to violent video games than do more easy-going kids (Lynch, 1999).

This finding was confirmed in a sophisticated research project completed by Craig Anderson of Iowa State University and Karen Dill of Lenoir-Rhyne College. In my judgement, Anderson and Dill have executed the best study of video game violence to date. It will be published in its entirety in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. They conducted two separate studies, one of which was an experiment.

In the first study they found a positive correlation between real-life aggressive behavior and violent video game play. In addition, they discovered that violent video game play was correlated with delinquency. Like Lynch, they also found that the correlation was much stronger for individuals who are characteristically aggressive. It is also noteworthy that Anderson and Dill found that the college students who spent the most time playing video games had the lowest grade point averages.

Correlational studies are important but do not establish a causal link. It could be that aggressive people who get into more trouble prefer violent video games. To begin to address the causal question, the two researchers designed an experiment. They used games of the same difficulty thereby ruling out frustration as a reason for aggression that might result from playing a violent game. Those students randomly assigned to play a violent game showed increases in aggressive thoughts and aggressive behavior. The students assigned to a non-violent game did not.

Additional studies will need to be completed before we can claim that there is a demonstrated cause effect relationship between video game violence and real life aggression. However, the recent research developments show that the concern about the impact of violent video games is justified. It should act as a spur for both more research and for greater vigilance over the video and computer game diet of children.