• Question: In a psychologist point of view, do you think violent video games promote violence?

    Asked by anon-183902 to Tom, Owen, Nathan, Lorna on 5 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Nathan Hook

      Nathan Hook answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Research is ongoing, but generally most research finds video games don’t promote violence and the academic consensus is they don’t. It is disappointing when politicians and others make such claims without an evidence base.

      A small amount of research has tried to claim it does – what happens is they count being angry for a second or two after playing and an outburst like swearing as ‘violence’. Clearly that is a real thing, but it’s misleading to confuse a micro-reaction like that with a notion that it changes people in a more long-term sense.

      Generally I think people can be easily influenced in the very short term, but affecting long term changes is very difficult.

    • Photo: Owen Jones

      Owen Jones answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Hi Drei,

      You’ve got a brilliant answer there from Nathan, who clearly knows his research!

      I can only add that I grew up playing GTA and have managed to live a violent free life. Nathan sums it up well with his final statement.

    • Photo: Lorna Camus

      Lorna Camus answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Hi Drei,

      I couldn’t have put it better than Nathan, you’ve got a great answer from him already!

    • Photo: Tom Gallagher-Mitchell

      Tom Gallagher-Mitchell answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      I concur. Nathan has summed things up well. Just a point to add that some research has shown that for a minority of individuals that the act of playing violent video games such as call of duty actually allows people to act out negative emotional states such as frustration and anger they may be experiencing in real world. This then means they do not act out in a negative way in their day to day lives.

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