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<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT size=5>Study Links Violent Video Games,
Hostility<BR></FONT></STRONG><FONT size=3>Research in U.S., Japan Shows
Aggression Increased for Months After Play<BR></FONT>
<P><FONT size=-1>By Donna St. George<BR>Washington Post Staff Writer<BR>Monday,
November 3, 2008; A18<BR></FONT></P>
<P></P>
<P>Children and teenagers who play violent video games show increased physical
aggression months afterward, according to new research that adds another layer
of evidence to the continuing debate over the video-game habits of the youngest
generation.</P>
<P>The research, published today in the journal Pediatrics, brings together
three longitudinal studies, one from the United States and two from Japan,
examining the content of games, how often they are played and aggressive
behaviors later in a school year.</P>
<P>The U.S. research was the first in the nation to look at the effects of
violent video games over time, said lead author Craig A. Anderson, a psychology
professor at <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iowa+State+University?tid=informline"
target="">Iowa State University</A> and director of its Center for the Study of
Violence.</P>
<P>Anderson said the collaboration with Japanese researchers was particularly
telling because video games are popular there and crime and aggression are less
prevalent. Some gamers have cited Japan's example as evidence that violent games
are not harmful.</P>
<P>Yet the studies produced similar findings in both countries, Anderson said.
"When you find consistent effects across two very different cultures, you're
looking at a pretty powerful phenomenon," he said. "One can no longer claim this
is somehow a uniquely American phenomenon. This is a general phenomenon that
occurs across cultures."</P>
<P>The study in the United States showed an increased likelihood of getting into
a fight at school or being identified by a teacher or peer as being physically
aggressive five to six months later in the same school year. It focused on 364
children ages 9 to 12 in Minnesota and was first included in a 2007 book,
"Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents."</P>
<P>Japanese researchers studied more than 1,200 Japanese youths ages 12 to 18.
In all three studies, researchers accounted for gender and previous
aggressiveness.</P>
<P>"We now have conclusive evidence that playing violent video games has harmful
effects on children and adolescents," Anderson said.</P>
<P>The <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/American+Academy+of+Pediatrics?tid=informline"
target="">American Academy of Pediatrics</A>, which publishes the journal in
which the study appears this month, is in the process of revising its
recommendations on media violence, and expects to issue a new statement in four
to six months, a spokeswoman said. The academy now recognizes violence in media
as a significant health risk to children and adolescents and recommends limiting
screen time including television, computers and video games to one to two hours
a day.</P>
<P>For many parents, the latest research was unsettling, though not
surprising.</P>
<P>Patricia Daumas, 50, a single mother of two in Reston, said she sometimes
wonders about her decision to allow her sons, ages 8 and 11, to play war games.
But like many parents, she sees the issue as complex. She does not allow her
sons to play games rated "mature."</P>
<P>"I don't think the games are good for them," she said, "but what I'm seeing
in my own children is that they're still very gentle, that they're very caring,
and they have absolutely no behavior problems at school."</P>
<P>Daumas noted that many of her sons' friends play the games. "It's a tough
balancing act," she said.</P>
<P>Tracey Goldman, 42, a mother of two in Takoma Park, said she enforces time
limits on video-game playing and does not allow violent content. Her
fourth-grader plays Lego Star Wars, she said, but otherwise, "I just feel very
uneasy about letting him play those kinds of games."</P>
<P>Still, she said, monitoring game-time can require vigilance because children
can find games on Internet sites. She recalled looking over her son's shoulder
as he played at a computer, asking: "Wait a minute. Is that shooting
people?"</P>
<P>Parents have debated the potentially harmful effects of video-game violence
for most of the last two decades, as the games have become more popular and more
graphic. In the new research, games were deemed violent when one character
harmed or killed another.</P>
<P>Still, not all video games are violent or associated with such negative
effects, said Joseph Kahne of Mills College in Oakland, Calif., coauthor of a
recent video-gaming study by the Pew Internet &amp; American Life
Project.</P>
<P>The Pew study, based on a poll of 1,102 youths ages 12 to 17, found that most
teenagers play many different kinds of games and that some types of play -- such
as making decisions about how to run a city -- are correlated with more
political or civic involvement.</P>
<P>Overall, Kahne said, "it's important to pay attention to the nature of the
games and the sense that kids make of the experience."</P>
<P>Although the longitudinal studies reported in Anderson's study showed that
frequent playing of violent video games leads to greater aggression, Anderson
also said this message should be understood in the larger context of a child's
life.</P>
<P>"A healthy, normal, nonviolent child or adolescent who has no other risk
factors for high aggression or violence is not going to become a school shooter
simply because they play five hours or 10 hours a week of these violent video
games," he said.</P>
<P>Extreme forms of violence, Anderson said, "almost always occur when there is
a convergence of multiple risk factors."</P>
<P>A U.S. surgeon general report in 2001 identified an array of those risk
factors, including gang involvement, antisocial parents and peers, substance
abuse, poverty and media violence. Males are more at risk.</P>
<P>The new study noted that video games are played in 90 percent of American
homes with children ages 8 to 16 and that the U.S. average playing time of four
hours a week in the late 1980s is now up to 13 hours a week, with boys averaging
16 to 18 hours a week.</P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>