Study: Violent videogames affect kids' brains

by Zack Stern { Nov 29th 2006 at 8:30AM }

Reuters describes a recent study of violent videogames' affect on teens; the study reports that a violent game made kids more emotionally aroused, with less control and concentration, than kids playing a non-violent game.

The Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis study compared Need for Speed: Underground and Medal of Honor: Frontline. Kids played the games, then, using a fancy MRI machine, blood-flow was measured to parts of their brains while they performed simple tasks. The study tested only 44 subjects, so it may point to significant results, but it also needs to be repeated with bigger groups.

While we might have picked a different non-violent game -- we always crash our NFS cars, and that seems pretty violent -- we hope that this sort of research is also applied to other media before drawing conclusions. If violent games cause kids to go into fight-or-flight mode as the study suggests, can this be linked to real-world reactions or long-term changes? How do kids' responses to movies compare to games?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]

Tags: ESRB, research, study, violence, violent games, ViolentGames

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

crono141 @ Nov 29th 2006 8:42AM

A better question: are the conclusions they pulled the only possible, or even most likely conclusions?

When I read this article, it said something about blood flow to the "contol" portion of the brain being low in the FPS and high in the racer. They then concluded that violence causes a lack of control. The other, and more likely, conclusion is that a racing game requires more control and concentration than an FPS does, due to the nature of game mechanics. Violence or non-violence doesn't even enter into the equation.

They have to many variables in this study, but are only commented on the assumed effects of 1 of them, and ignoring all the rest.

Chris @ Nov 29th 2006 8:47AM

God, what doesn't affect kids' brains? I'm sick and fucking tired of hearing about how fragile and dainty our children are. No shit violence makes kids feel weird. That's fun though. It's when coupled with bad parenting that you have an issue.

Daniel @ Nov 29th 2006 8:50AM

Exactly, Chris.

And I mean, I've played video games my entire life, and I'm very well-adjusted, have a steady job, a great family life and don't think I've ever been in a real physical fight, other than a few punch-ups with my brothers when I was eight years old.

Doesn't that mean, then, that video games are good for me and are benefitting my behaviour?

The Intangible Fact @ Nov 29th 2006 8:53AM

Video games are a 13 billion dollar industry in the US. Why make a study on violent video games when they have movies out like Saw and Hostel? Those movies are leaps and bounds over any video game i have played in terms of violents. Do a study on the effects of animated movies with young children. Don't just target the video game industry.

Zach @ Nov 29th 2006 8:55AM

I'm 15 and I've played many, many violent games. I've beaten every game in the Metal Gear Solid series, Grand Theft Auto series, Half-Life series, etc. and I dislike violence. I've never been in a real fight in my life. Saying that playing violent video games fucks with your brain is bullshit.

Psaakyrn @ Nov 29th 2006 9:06AM

Ok, I don't see a problem with this. If you're doing maths as opposed to literature, you use different parts of your brain. Likewise, if you're engaged with an activity requiring more reflexes with more percieved danger, you'll naturally be more weary and etc. (and because of how video games work, I'll guess that yes, you'll likely see more of an effect from video games, since it involves active interaction, as opposed to passive interaction from non-interactive entertainment.)

(just for note: just because they take their measurements after the games, does not mean the effect is persistent. When exercise, I'll be tired during and after. Same thing happens here: the blood circulation persists a while even after the initial activity)

The more important question is, if this in any way affect their decision-making outside video games, and if so, does it affect it positive, negative, or neutral?

trent @ Nov 29th 2006 9:05AM

seriously though why did they only test 2 games? this isnt a scientific study its a joke. they should be testing all age brackets, on at least 50 computer games, a bunch of board games, watching movies. then compare the data. theyll see that war movies, war games, and playing freakin tag will stimulate a kid one way, while strategy games, chess, and maybe even racing games stimulate a kid another way.

seriously is the mainstream media this stupid?! and why the heck do sites even post this crap like it has some credibility!

Jeff @ Nov 29th 2006 9:07AM

You guys act as if video games are being somehow scapegoated here, and no other media has ever been studied. It has, and all it takes is a Google search to turn up numerous studies on violence in movies, TV, and even music. Many of these are conflicting, but the studies have been done, just as they are now being done on video games.

Every time someone denounces violent video games, there are invariably people who post comments to the effect of "no study has ever shown a link between violent video games and behavior" - well, you can't make that statement anymore. You may or may not agree with the results, but the study is what it is and it does show a link.

I think it's naive to think that violent media - of any kind - does not affect our culture and perceptions. It also becomes self-perpetuating - violent culture begats a violent culture.

Look at it this way. Lots of people point to the fact that certain countries in this world actually have higher gun ownership rates than the United States, while also having much lower rates of violent crime. Why? What is it that, despite all of our advancements and all of our knowledge, makes this country violent at the level of most third-world countries? It's not all racial violence. It's not all drug-related. It's not all domestic.

Certainly there is a historical basis for much of this, but with better education and law enforcement, plus a healthy economy, you would think that the level of violence here would have dropped over time to better match that of the rest of the developed world. And while it has dropped, we still have about 35,000 murders per year - compared to about 1,000 in Japan (a country with about half the population). At the same time, we're probably the only country in the world besides North Korea or the former Iraq that still thinks it's ok to unilaterally invade another country. There have to be reasons for this.

I'm not saying this is all or even mostly due to video games. But games are part of our culture - they are both a reflection of it and a continuing influence on it. (And all culture is is a collection of individual ideas put together - it starts with the individual.) No more or less so than TV, movies or music. I personally think this is pretty obvious, but a lot of people seem to continue to deny it, as if games exist completely in their own little vacuum, immune to culture and with culture immune to them. It's just not the case. Games do have an effect on people, just as every other form of media does.

Michael Comeau @ Nov 29th 2006 9:23AM

Politicians are hilarious. If they want to stop violence, why don't they make it a rule that the Yankees can't play the Red Sox?

trent @ Nov 29th 2006 10:17AM

ignorant people will quote this study and say "See games are bad." we dont need to fuel these peoples antigaming fires with badly execute inaccurate info. of course theyre scapegoating games! this isnt about science, this is about a 'scientists' grudge against violent media. rememeber that gaming is freakin art.

the point is this kind of ignorant crap will be propogated through the media and theyll start wagging their fingers at us again. and of course well just sit here and watch helplessly.

there needs to be real scientific studies that are years long and encompass all media and age groups and is overseen by organizers from all sides of the political and scientific community. something like that may prove that violent games affect you, but at least it wouldnt be some rinky dink home violence study like this moron is conducting.

Chocolate Starfish @ Nov 29th 2006 9:23AM

Anyone have a link to the actual study? I'd like to see how they set it up, what they used as a control group (if they even had one), what the tasks were, what kind of analyses they did on the results, how they reached their conclusions, etc. With these kinds of studies it's usually far from "scientific."

niels @ Nov 29th 2006 9:27AM

jeff, I agree totally. But I think previous commenters did not have a problem with the argument that videogames have an influence on violent behavior. The real question is whether video games CAUSE violent behavior, and I think that neither the study cited above nor any other evidence points in this direction.

The problem is that politicians seem to take studies like the one cited here as evidence that videogames cause violence. Obviously, 'influence' and 'cause' are very different things.

Zach @ Nov 29th 2006 9:31AM

Japan is probably the most advanced nation in the world when it comes to technology, and you don't have massive violence breaking out there. If watching a movie, listening to a CD, or playing a video game makes someone go out and murder another human, then they fucked up to begin with. No rational person murders because of the media they enjoy.

kodiak @ Nov 29th 2006 5:19PM

sorry zach, but japans not there yet technologicaly. they do keep very good crime rates, and i agree, its not beacause of media alone, if at all.

32_Footsteps @ Nov 29th 2006 10:16AM

Has anyone in any of these studies proven that these changes in brain chemistry last long enough or are impacting the human brain enough that behavior is modified?

I mean, if you want to get at it, chocolate lowers the control mechanism in the brain, but I don't see anyone accusing Hershey of causing school shootings.

Liqwid @ Nov 29th 2006 10:25AM

Violence has always been here. Violence will always be here. It's here to stay. No one person is to blame for it except for the human(s) accountable. It's like blaming guns for killing people... guns can't squeeze their own triggers. Knives can't just stab an innocent person. People have common sense, even though some lack in that dept., everyone should know right from wrong. If not, then they aren't fit to live in a basic society.

People just don't want to blame themselves for what they do. This is why they scapegoat.

JRM @ Nov 29th 2006 10:50AM

This news item is strictly propaganda!!!
There is no proof that violent videogames gets anyone "emotional". The study only shows that there is lots of brain activity involved in gaming. you could have the same brain activity solving a math problem, but no one would jump to conclusions about that. The point is that no one yet knows how action potentials in brain cells relates to emotions/desires. how could you? the brain is just a big ball of electricity.

IMO, the danger of violent videogames is when people cross the line and start to believe that what they see in the game is "normal", therefore they repeat violent behaviours in the real world. But this is more a lack of parental/social guidance than anything else.

Scooby Doo @ Nov 29th 2006 11:02AM

Unless something changed, Japan's a bad reference to America for crime rate; Japan has very strict gun enforcement laws and regular citizens can't carry guns. However it's good to see that at least one person (Jeff) doesn't have knee-jerk reaction to these studies.

The study leaves a lot of questions, but dismissing these things out of hand isn't going to win over the decision makers and politicians. You don't fight research studies with words, you fight them with conflicting findings in other reports. And unless you hold that same Ph.D. that researcher most likely does, I wouldn't try and pick apart their scientific process, at least not on a professional level.

If you really care about the issue, start by letting your elected representatives know that the issue is important to you and that federal funds need to be diverted to better studies. Those of you doing post-grad work could apply for a grant to do more research...and given how little information is out there...you just may have a government entity fund such a study.

The reality is no one here really knows the impact of violent video games. Certainly video games offer a level of interaction unparalleled to other forms of media, but to what degree, no one can say. Scientific research does not involve statements like 'Well, me and my friend have been gaming for 20 years and we're okay.'

My biggest fear is that we make up a minority. In the political world most elected officials aren't going to be bothered with us, so we have to fight fire with fire, rather than merely calling BS on a report because our *personal opinion* differs from the researcher. Otherwise, we may just see some senator sneak in a video game law right before next election and I don't think us gamers have the strength in numbers, political money, or central leadership to do anything but watch it pass the House and Senate.

Pal @ Nov 29th 2006 11:17AM

You play games, you get excited. You watch movies, you get excited. You run, you get excited. What's new?

If a murderer admits that he has played games before, it doesn't mean that the game made him into a killer. He's just a killer that happened to like games. It's AMAZING how many people have played DOOM, but the murderer creation rate is less than 1%.

Oh scientists. They'll research anything if the check has enough zeros written on it.

DrunkenCP @ Nov 30th 2006 11:13AM

My reaction to this was "Holy crap, I already knew that violent videogames can cause an emotional reaction." Anybody that's played a really intense FPS can tell you that. Sometimes it's a rush, and it's fun. That's why people play video games, and why people snowboard too. However, this will probably be abused by the anti-videogames people as more "proof" that videogames are to blame, and that there isn't a deeper problem. Just as chocolate does not lead to heroine addiction, even though they both stimulate some of the same parts of the brain, videogames should not lead to real-world voilence.

Ciaran @ Nov 29th 2006 11:29AM

thats not good! We're all gonna go crazy!

Shagi @ Nov 29th 2006 11:25AM

This is a rally bad comparison. Naturally when your playing a driving simulator you need to remain calm and carefully navigate your vehicle with subtle nudging of the analog stick. Driving games are all about control and your certainly not going to need lightning fast reflexes as often as in a game like Medal of Honor. Its obvious to me that all they are actually measuring is the different physical states that a game that requires fast reflexes vs. a game that requires cool calm calculating movements.

How that translates into violent behavior is beyond me.

Thomas Crymes @ Nov 29th 2006 11:31AM

What you have to do is avoid these knee-jerk reactions. Just recognize that kids are a product of their upbringing, and it isn't a huge leap to think that things that take up a good portion of their time has an affect.

I played violent video games and I'm all right. That doesn't mean I can't sit back and objectively say that games or any immersive media can have a lasting impact on a normal person.

I didn't grow up sniping people in a realistic FPS game. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that realistic depictions make it easier for the brain to make correlations. I mean the military found that soldiers who shot at human shaped targets had an easier time pulling the trigger on real people in war.

I'm not saying that kids will go around killing people. That isn't going to happen. I'm just talking about changes in the way people relate to the world and perhaps subtle ways the brain interprets data.

OtakuCODE @ Nov 29th 2006 12:47PM

The sample sizes they used were below the minimum required to establish statistical significance. That single fact right there completely and entirely invalidates every single thing they saw.

Beyond that, their methodology is not just shoddy, it's downright rigged. Racing games are 'constant', and FPS games are 'punctuated' in terms of needed player attention and reaction. In a racing game, you hit the analog stick the wrong way at ANY time, and you end up in the ditch. In an FPS, the vast majority of the time you'll just end up looking at a wall or walking a bit sideways. It doesn't affect gameplay. Only during firefights are reaction times and accuracy important.

Besides that, I don't know of ANYONE, even the mental rejects that suggest violent games can affect childrens behavior, that claims games have no effect on brain chemistry DURING play. The concern is that it has longer term effects. And this study didn't even try to lie about it like they lied about the experiences during...

jayntampa @ Nov 29th 2006 1:43PM

They should try the same test on kid's playing football or any of a myriad number of sports kids play.

Brian @ Nov 29th 2006 6:57PM

Hey OtakuCODE,

Actually, that's a pretty large sample size for an fMRI study. I'll go out on a limb and assume that you're not a researcher, but statistical significance is a tricky honeybee and depends on more than just the number of people involved. There's no specific "minimum" number of people required to reach statistical significance, because you also have to take the number of trials/length of the study, and variability of responses into account. What you're probably thinking of is the generalizability of the study (whether we could apply it to other people), and that's not necessarily something you could do with this study.

MANY studies have shown SHORT TERM effects of videogame violence on behavior. The real problem is a lack of longitudinal studies, though you are all free to check out google scholar and see what's available there. Once you look at the long-term, you start to see that there's really very little effect of videogames in any meaningful way, other than a slight improvement in useful field of view (uFOV). Gamers tend to be able to use info in their periphery a bit better than non-gamers.