Science loves the violent video game debate. Over the past decade we’ve been subjected to study after study attempting to prove that violent video games do or do not influence aggressive behaviour in children. It’s gotten to the point where the arguments cancel each other out, leaving us with no real clue as to the potential negative effects.
But what of the positive effects? Can violent action games help children become more involved in their communities both online and offline? That’s what a recent study by Texas A&M associate professor Christopher J. Ferguson aimed to find out in the recently published study “Call of (civic) duty: Action games and civic behaviour in a large sample of youth.”
Ferguson used data from a 2008 study by Amanda Lenhart and colleagues at the Pew Internet and American Life
Project that studied the correlation between video games and civic engagement in 1,102 youth. The study, while gathering comprehensive data, didn’t focus primarily on violent action games. Ferguson took the 1,102 teens and narrowed them down to the 873 that listed violent games as their top three favourites.
Ferguson further broke down the records, singling out tech savvy parents and parents that were involved in their children’s video game playing.
The records bore several interesting correlations between parental involvement and violent gaming. For instance, children with parents that were more involved with their game playing tended to be exposed to more violence than those without, which seems to indicate parents feel better about letting their children play violent games when they are actively involved in the process.
But we’re talking about civic engagement here. What about those results? Ferguson’s study found that civic engagement – taking on an active role in community affairs – was higher for girls, older teens, and children whose parents were active in their violent video game playing. Violent video games by themselves did not promote civic engagement, but a combination of violent games and parental involvement did.
While parents are required for an increase in civic engagement, online social behaviour jumped for violent video game playing children without parental involvement. This is likely indicative of the amount of team work that goes into playing online shooters.
So while the jury is still out on whether or not violent games will turn our children into killers (we’re leaning towards no), this study shows that a little parental responsibility can go a long way towards changing a potentially harmful activity into something positive and fulfilling.
See the full study at Elsevier. Thanks to Professor Ferguson for sending it our way.
WTHfor
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 1:43 PMA pro-shooter study from Texas A&M is maybe not the most credible given their close ties with the military.
Flay
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 1:44 PMSo the conclusion is that because parents play video games with their children they are more civil? That seems rather silly. Wouldn’t it make more sense to claim that teenagers who have a more involved relationship with their parents IN GENERAL are more likely to be socially balanced. No startling revelations there.
706
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 6:00 PMI have to agree with that conclusion. I wouldn’t necessarily say they are more likely to be socially balanced, though that is probably true, I would say that they are more likely to take an active role in their community as this is something that their parents would encourage in them.
Sam Timmins
Friday, December 31, 2010 at 6:09 AMAre we still listening to this Ferguson hack?
His reports were used for the anti-side of Australia’s R18 debate!