According to a recent study, playing violent video games doesn’t predispose a person to becoming violent.
There have been reports in the past stating that watching and playing violent videos games doesn’t directly result in someone become violent. Now, there’s another one. It’s slowly turning into a myth on the level of sitting too close to the TV will make you blind. Or, the one that grew in the 80’s of listening to heavy metal, like Black Sabbath et al., will make you evil and satanic.
The reality that is emerging is quite different. A recent study from Massey University’s Aaron Drummond and published in the Royal Society Open Science evaluated 28 different studies over the last 12 years and came to a conclusion as reported by Guardian. The study concludes with the researches stating, “current research is unable to support the hypothesis that violent video games have a meaningful long-term predictive impact on youth aggression.” Many gamers have known this since they started playing. Objective evidence and studies are starting to put to rest the claims that there are correlations of the two.
The positive aspect in all this is that today’s parents are wiser to the fact than yesterday’s. Most Gen Xers, and younger, have essentially grown up with playing video games. Or, at least a good amount of exposure to them. They can attest to the fact that their 1000 hours of playing DOOM and other titles didn’t make them go out on a shooting rampage. Parent’s of today’s teens are not those of the 70’s and 80’s that argued that violent movies, games, or whatever corrupts youth and makes them violent. They get it, and one would think that with more and more studies like this coming forward it will finally start to put the issue to rest.
