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There is "no relationship between aggressive behaviour in teenagers and the amount of time spent playing violent video games", according to a report from the Oxford Internet Institute published on Wednesday. Based on interviews with 1,004 young people - and, unlike many other studies, on corresponding interviews with their carers - the report's lead author, Andrew Przybylski, highlighted the problem of cherry-picking results in some previous studies and its tendency to feed moral panic. "Despite interest in the topic by parents and policymakers," he noted, "the research has not demonstrated that there is cause for concern."

Those who have followed this debate for some time won't be surprised. In March 2008, the psychologist Tanya Byron delivered the government-commissioned report, "Safer Children in a Digital World", which concluded that, "We need to move from a discussion about the media 'causing' harm to one which focuses on children and young people . . . and how we can use our understanding of how they develop to empower them to manage risks and make the digital world safer."

How far have we moved in the past 11 years? Not as far as Dr Byron might have hoped. Last year, the Trump White House explicitly linked the Parkland school shooting in February to violent games "shaping young people's thoughts", even releasing a mash-up video of violent scenes from games on the official White House YouTube channel. With more than 1.5m views to date, many presumably from adolescents, it's certainly a novel approach to protection.

Moral panics are a fine way of agitating voters. But there's something deeper going on. At root, the argument that media can directly cause violence is an argument about toxicity. It entails the claim that certain content is not only inappropriate but also actively corrupting - at least to the young or impressionable - and that the challenges it poses thus go beyond the scope of rating systems and parental judgment.

Paradoxically, this can be a reassuring perspective. If all that needs to be done in order to save our souls is to minimise exposure to something noxious, then the fault clearly lies with the technology rather than with us. We must impose a form of moral digital detox upon our dependants, bringing back the norms of a simpler and safer age.

This nostalgia isn't accidental. The entire debate around harm caused by violence in media - video nasties, violent games, pulp fiction - is almost touchingly nostalgic in the age of social media manipulation, fake news and hate mobs for hire. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could improve society simply by protecting people from unpleasant things? Yes. Yet once you move beyond the obvious (if important) point that there are appropriate ages for different types of content, you rapidly find yourself confronting a reality where harm is most often born from ignorance, vulnerability and exploitation; and where it's associated not so much with playing at combat as treating combat like play.

As the parent of two young children, aged five and three, my domestic life is yet to arrive at the issue of violence in media - but I'm already staring down the twin barrels of technological infiltration. First, there are the devices my wife and I struggle to put down, and through which the world tries to steal one of the most precious things we can offer our children - our undivided attention. Second, there are the devices that offer us respite by sucking up our children's own time.

Managing both of these seductions seems to me far more closely (and troublingly) tied to young people's contentment, resilience and long-term safety than any questions surrounding age-appropriate media content. I'm far more concerned about my children, as they grow older, spending unattended time on YouTube than I am about the bloodiness of single-player console games. And I'm far more concerned about the culture and social interactions surrounding even the most innocuous multi-player games than I am about any number of kids clustered in my living room dispatching zombies onscreen.

Many things can become harmful in the absence of mechanisms for safely exploring and understanding them; and the most important mechanisms we possess for keeping others and ourselves safe online are about time, attention and sharing. In our digital age, danger lies more than ever in the gaps in our knowledge and care; while the steps towards becoming a discerning digital citizen equally entail boundaries, permissions, conversations - and love and attention unstintingly given.

Like other media, games can be a refuge, a distraction, an experiment and a joy. But they should never become either a scapegoat for society's inadequacies - or something we abandon our children to in the absence of attention and care.
The writer is author of 'How to Thrive in the Digital Age' and 'Critical Thinking'

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Violent video games are not to blame for our own failings

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There is "no relationship between aggressive behaviour in teenagers and the amount of time spent playing violent video games", according to a report from the Oxford Internet Institute published on Wednesday.

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Playing violent video games does not appear to have a meaningful impact on aggression

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We've all heard people blame mass shootings on violent video games- but is there validity to that claim? A study published in Collabra: Psychology refutes the claims and finds that playing shooter video games does not lead to an increase in aggression. ...

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By Robert Preidt, HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Nov. 8, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Will boys fixated on gore-filled video games become violent in real life? Many parents may worry that's the case, but new and reassuring research finds violent video games don't trigger actual violence in kids.

The study included boys aged 8 to 18, the group most likely to play violent video games, and examined two types of violence: aggression against other people, and destruction of things/property.

The researchers found no evidence that the boys' violence against other people increased after playing a violent video game.

However, parents did report that their children were more likely to break things after playing violent video games.

The study was published recently in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

"Taken together, these results suggest that violent video games may agitate children, but this agitation does not translate into violence against other people - which is the type of violence which we care about most," said study author Agne Suziedelyte. She is a senior lecturer in City, University of London's department of economics.

"A likely explanation for my results is that video game playing usually takes place at home, where opportunities to engage in violence are lower," Suziedelyte said in a university news release. "This 'incapacitation' effect is especially important for violence-prone boys who may be especially attracted to violent video games."

Suziedelyte noted there are calls for governments to restrict access to violent video games.

But these findings suggest that "policies that place restrictions on video game sales to minors are unlikely to reduce violence," Suziedelyte said.

Previous research has found little evidence of a connection between violent video games and real-life violence.

The possible link is often brought up after mass shootings where perpetrators had an interest in violent video games.

But some experts suggest that other factors, such as mental illness and/or easy access to guns, are more likely explanations for mass shootings.

In 2013, former President Barack Obama called for more government funding for research on video games and violence.

The American Academy of Pediatrics offers advice on video games.

SOURCE: City, University of London, news release, Nov. 5, 2021

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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No Evidence Violent Video Games Lead to Real Violence: Study

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By Robert Preidt, HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, Nov. 8, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Will boys fixated on gore-filled video games become violent in real life? Many parents may worry that's the case, but new and reassuring research finds violent video games don't trigger actual violence in kids.

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In the wake of the El Paso shooting on Aug. 3 that left 21 dead and dozens injured, a familiar trope has reemerged: Often, when a young man is the shooter, people try to blame the tragedy on violent video games and other forms of media.

These are the same connections a Florida lawmaker made after the Parkland shooting in February 2018, suggesting that the gunman in that case "was prepared to pick off students like it's a video game."

Kevin McCarthy, the GOP House minority leader, also tells Fox News that video games are the problem following the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. pic.twitter.com/w7DmlJ9O1K

- John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) August 4, 2019

But, speaking as a researcher who has studied violent video games for almost 15 years, I can state that there is no evidence to support these claims that violent media and real-world violence are connected. As far back as 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that research did not find a clear connection between violent video games and aggressive behavior.

Criminologists who study mass shootings specifically refer to those sorts of connections as a " myth." And in 2017, the Media Psychology and Technology division of the American Psychological Association released a statement I helped craft, suggesting reporters and policymakers cease linking mass shootings to violent media, given the lack of evidence for a link.

A history of a moral panic

So why are so many policymakers inclined to blame violent video games for violence? There are two main reasons.

The first is the psychological research community's efforts to market itself as strictly scientific. This led to a replication crisis instead, with researchers often unable to repeat the results of their studies. Now, psychology researchers are reassessing their analyses of a wide range of issues - not just violent video games, but implicit racism, power poses and more.

The other part of the answer lies in the troubled history of violent video game research specifically.

Particularly in the early 2000s, dubious evidence regarding violent video games was uncritically promoted. But over the years, confidence among scholars that violent video games influence aggression or violence has crumbled.

Reviewing all the scholarly literature

My own research has examined the degree to which violent video games can - or can't - predict youth aggression and violence. In a 2015 meta-analysis, I examined 101 studies on the subject and found that violent video games had little impact on kids' aggression, mood, helping behavior or grades.

Spikes in violent video games' popularity are well-known to correlate with substantial declines in youth violence - not increases.

Any claims that there is consistent evidence that violent video games encourage aggression are simply false.

The role of professional groups

With so little evidence, why are people like Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin still trying to blame violent video games for mass shootings by young men? Can groups like the National Rifle Association seriously blame imaginary guns for gun violence?

A key element of that problem is the willingness of professional guild organizations such as the APA to promote false beliefs about violent video games. (I'm a fellow of the APA.) These groups mainly exist to promote a profession among news media, the public and policymakers, influencing licensing and insurance laws. They also make it easier to get grants and newspaper headlines. Psychologists and psychology researchers like myself pay them yearly dues to increase the public profile of psychology. But there is a risk the general public may mistake promotional positions for objective science.

It's bad enough that these statements misrepresent the actual scholarly research and misinform the public. But it's worse when those falsehoods give advocacy groups like the NRA cover to shift blame for violence onto non-issues like video games. The resulting misunderstanding hinders efforts to address mental illness and other issues, such as the need for gun control, that are actually related to gun violence.
This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article. This story was updated from an earlier version to reflect the events surrounding the El Paso and Dayton shootings.

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Christopher J. Ferguson, The Conversation

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Analysis: Why it's time to stop blaming video games for real-world violence

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In the wake of the El Paso shooting on Aug. 3 that left 21 dead and dozens injured, a familiar trope has reemerged: Often, when a young man is the shooter, people try to blame the tragedy on violent video games and other forms of media.

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In a highly-anticipated press conference Wednesday morning to address gun violence in the United States, President Barack Obama called for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to renew scientific inquiry into the relationship between "video games, media images, and violence," and urged Congress to support a bill that would grant the organization $10 million to conduct this new research.

"We don't benefit from ignorance. We don't benefit from not knowing the science of this epidemic of violence." Obama said. "Congress should fund research into the effects violent video games have on young minds."

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Obama Urges $10 Million to Study Video Games and Violence

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President Barack Obama called for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to renew scientific inquiry into the relationship between "video games, media images, and violence," and urged Congress to support a bill that would grant the organization $10 million to conduct this new research.

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A 2018 meta-analysis found that there is a small increase in real-world physical aggression among adolescents and pre-teens who play violent video games. Led by Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College, the study team pooled data from 24 previous studies in an attempt to avoid some of the problems that have made the question of a connection between gaming and aggression controversial.

Many previous studies, according to a story in Scientific American, have been criticized by "a small but vocal cadre of researchers [who] have argued much of the work implicating video games has serious flaws in that, among other things, it measures the frequency of aggressive thoughts or language rather than physically aggressive behaviors like hitting or pushing, which have more real-world relevance."

Hull and team limited their analysis to studies that "measured the relationship between violent video game use and overt physical aggression," according to the Scientific American article.

The Dartmouth analysis drew on 24 studies involving more than 17,000 participants and found that "playing violent video games is associated with increases in physical aggression over time in children and teens," according to a Dartmouth press release describing the study, which was published Oct. 1, 2018, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The studies the Dartmouth team analyzed "tracked physical aggression among users of violent video games for periods ranging from three months to four years. Examples of physical aggression included incidents such as hitting someone or being sent to the school principal's office for fighting, and were based on reports from children, parents, teachers, and peers," according to the press release.

The study was almost immediately called in to question. In an editorial in Psychology Today, a pair of professors claim the results of the meta-analysis are not statistically significant. Hull and team wrote in the PNAS paper that, while small, the results are indeed significant. The Psychology Today editorial makes an appeal to a 2017 statement by the American Psychological Association's media psychology and technology division "cautioning policy makers and news media to stop linking violent games to serious real-world aggression as the data is just not there to support such beliefs."

It should be noted, however, that the 2017 statement questions the connection between "serious" aggression while the APA Resolution of 2015, based on a review of its 2005 resolution by its own experts, found that "the link between violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior is one of the most studied and best established. Since the earlier meta-analyses, this link continues to be a reliable finding and shows good multi-method consistency across various representations of both violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior."

While the effect sizes are small, they've been similar across many studies, according to the APA resolution. The problem has been the interpretation of aggression, with some writers claiming an unfounded connection between homicides, mass shootings, and other extremes of violence. The violence the APA resolution documents is more mundane and involves the kind of bullying that, while often having dire long-term consequences, is less immediately dangerous: "insults, threats, hitting, pushing, hair pulling, biting and other forms of verbal and physical aggression."

Minor and micro-aggressions, though, do have significant health risks, especially for mental health. People of color, LGBTQ people, and women everywhere experience higher levels of depression and anger, as well as stress-related disorders, including heart disease, asthma, obesity, accelerated aging, and premature death. The costs of even minor aggression are laid at the feet of the individuals who suffer, their friends and families, and society at large as the cost of healthcare skyrockets.

Finally, it should be noted that studies looking for a connection between game violence and physical aggression are not looking at the wider context of the way we enculturate children, especially boys. As WSU's Stacey Hust and Kathleen Rodgers have shown, you don't have to prove a causative effect to know that immersing kids in games filled with violence and sexist tropes leads to undesirable consequences, particularly the perpetuation of interpersonal violence in intimate relationships.

No wonder, then, that when feminist media critic Anita Saarkesian launched her YouTube series, " Tropes vs. Women in Video Games," she was the target of vitriol and violence. Years later she'd joke about "her first bomb threat," but that was only after her life had been upended by the boys club that didn't like "this woman" showing them the "grim evidence of industry-wide sexism."
Read more about WSU research and study on video games in "What's missing in video games."

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The evidence that video game violence leads to real-world aggression

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A 2018 meta-analysis found that there is a small increase in real-world physical aggression among adolescents and pre-teens who play violent video games. Led by Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College, the study team pooled data from 24 previous studies in an attempt to avoid some of the problems that have made the question of a connection between gaming and aggression controversial.

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WASHINGTON - Playing violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Mortal Kombat can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in actual life, according to two studies appearing in the April issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Furthermore, violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor, say the researchers.

"One study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games," said psychologists Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., and Karen E. Dill, Ph.D. "The other study reveals that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants."

The first study involved 227 college students who completed a measure of trait aggressiveness and reported their actual aggressive behaviors (delinquency) in the recent past. They also reported their video game playing habits. "We found that students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior," said lead author Anderson, of Iowa State University. "We also found that amount of time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades in college."

In the second study, 210 college students played either a violent (Wolfenstein 3D) or nonviolent video game (Myst). A short time later, the students who played the violent video game punished an opponent (received a noise blast with varying intensity) for a longer period of time than did students who had played the nonviolent video game.

"Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations," said Dr. Anderson. "In the short run, playing a violent video game appears to affect aggression by priming aggressive thoughts. Longer-term effects are likely to be longer lasting as well, as the player learns and practices new aggression-related scripts that can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise."

"One major concern is the active nature of the learning environment of the video game," say the authors. "This medium is potentially more dangerous than exposure to violent television and movies, which are known to have substantial effects on aggression and violence."

Article: "Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life," Craig A. Anderson, PhD, Iowa State University of Science and Technology and Karen E. Dill, PhD, Lenoir-Rhyne College, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 78, No. 4.

Reporters: Karen E. Dill, PhD, can be reached by telephone at (828) 328-7209
The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 159,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 59 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.

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Violent video games can increase aggression

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The engrossing, interactive nature of violent video games may increase aggression by priming aggressive thoughts.

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by Karlo Bojčić

Through several generations there has been an ongoing scientific debate that exposure to violent media could lead to violent individual's behaviour. This includes diverse examples through history, such as cinema, comic, music and television. One of the debate elements was that video games have greater influence on individual's behaviour. It is because video games provide players with an interactive process which could have greater impact on players via closer identification with the main character.

Video games are popular in Croatia. Some evidence on the popularity of video games in Croatia could stem from the fact that the PlayStation logo is the most recognized symbol by Croatian children and adolescents, as reported in a study by Brandwatch in 2018. The aforementioned study analysed 50 million photos on Twitter, posted from September 1, 2018 to 28 February, 2019 worldwide. Using advanced logo recognition tools, the study concluded that in Croatia the Playstation brand surpasses all others, as can be seen on figure below.

Figure 1. Top logos by European countries, according to Brandwatch.
Source file

A recent study conducted in Croatia, among 531 students aged between 11 and 24 years (Livazović et al., 2018, in press) showed that 57,8% of examined students play video games at least one to two hours a day, while 14,5% play video games more than 10 hours a day. The data is presented in Figure 2. shows that shooter video games were the most popular video game genre with 45,3% of examined students reporting playing shooter video games at least once a month, and 14% of examined students playing shooter video games every day. The data for playing shooter video games is presented in Figure 3.

Figure 2. Average time of playing video games on personal computer or video games consoles. The solid fill indicates share of time consumed by playing video games.

Figure 3. Frequency of playing shooter video games. Percentages represent the shere of students playing shooter video games.

As mentioned, Croatian children and adolescents often play video games, and a good portion of these games are violent. So, is there a danger that playing violent video games can result with violence in real life? According to governments in Nepal, Iraq, and India violence in video games can make people violent in real life. The governments of these countries have adopted or proposed laws prohibiting violent video games (Žalac, 2019a; 2019b). The state of Pennsylvania is on a similar track, as their lawmakers have published a bill that proposes an additional 10% tax on violent video games. The money from the "sin tax" would go into fund that aims to enhance security measures against shootings at schools (Makuch, 2019).

There are numerous studies showing that violent video games lead to violence in real life. In their meta-analysis, Anderson et al (2010) identified 74 studies and found that playing violent video games is associated with higher levels of aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognition and physiological arousal. There is also some evidence that the influence of violent video game on individual's behaviour may be larger than the influence of violent television contents or films. Also, exposure to violent video games was associated with desensitization and lack of empathy. Studies carried by Wiegman & Van Schie, and Dill also confirm that violent video games cause violent behaviour (Ružić, 2011). According to some scholars, players get carried away by the video game so they transfer the violence from the virtual to the real world.

On the other hand, Ferguson and Kilburn (2010) found the opposite, in which increases of violence in video games were correlated with decreases of violence in real life. They suggested that when other risk factors (like depression, peers, family) are controlled, video game effects drop to near zero. Similarly, a study conducted in 2015 by DeCamp illustrates how the effect of playing violent video games on violent behaviour is reduced almost to zero when controlling for other violence risk factors. Ferguson quotes several studies that deny links between video game violence and real life violence (Ferguson, Konijn, 2015).

In 2015, Markey, Markey & French conducted a study in which they followed annual trends in video game sales from 1978 to 2011. No association was found between video game sales and violent crime in that period. Monthly sales of video games were associated with decrease in heavy assaults. They were not associated to homicides. There was also a tendency of decrease of homicides in the months following the release of popular M-rated video games (which may may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language and are generally suitable for ages 17 and older). A possible explanation for this decrease in violence is that playing violent video games leads to catharsis. Players who play violent video games can release their aggression in the virtual world, rather than in real life. Other explanations are that individuals predisposed to violent behaviour tend to seek out violent media, like video games. Because they play video games at home, there is less violence in real life.

The impact of video games on an individual's behaviour may be overstated based on solely correlational research. Correlation does not imply causation. Also, causality is often seen as a one-to-one causality. Players won't become violent just because they play violent video games. This is not how causality should be understood. There are many risk factors for violence. Some of the most significant are genes, having sensation-seeking personality, seeing or hearing domestic violence, lack of parental monitoring, lack of parental attachment, poverty, peer influences and depression (Ferguson, Kilburn, 2010; DeCamp, 2015). As the number of risk factors increases, so does the chance of violent acts by an individual.

In conclusion, there is some evidence that could relate video game violence to real life violence, as well as evidence that suggest video game violence may be harmless. Based on the presented research findings, it is implied that violent video games have negative influence on some individuals, especially those who are also affected by more significant risk factors. Therefore, it is implied that measures to reduce violence might be more effective if they were directed towards other, more significant risk factors rather than violent video games.

References:

Anderson, C. A., Akiko, S., Ihori, N., Swing, E. L.; Bushman, B. J.; Sakamoto, A., Rothstein, H. R., Muniba, S. (2010). Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 151-173.

DeCamp, W. (2015). Impersonal Agencies of Communication: Comparing the Effects of Video Games and Other Risk Factors on Violence. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(4), 296-304

Ferguson, C.J., Kilburn, J. (2010). Much Ado About Nothing: The Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Violent Video Game Effects in Eastern and Western Nations: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 174-178.

Ferguson, C. J., Konijn, E. A. (2015). She Said/He Said: A Peaceful Debate on Video Game Violence. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(4), 397-411.

Makuch, E. (2019, February 6). Violent Video Game Tax Proposed In Pennsylvania. Retrieved from https://www.gamespot.com/articles/violent-video-game-tax-proposed-in-pennsylvania/1100-6464870/

Markey, P. M., Markey, C. N., French, J. E. (2015). Violent Video Games and Real-World Violence: Rhetoric
Versus Data. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(4), 277-295

Ružić, N. (2011). The Internet and Video Games: Causes of Increased Aggressiveness Among Young People. Medijske studije, 2(3-4), 16-27.

The Brand Visibility Report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.brandwatch.com/reports/2019-brand-visibility/view/#block-65

Žalac, Z. (2019a, April 12). PUBG je zabranjen u jednoj državi jer djeca postaju nasilna od igranja. Retrieved from https://www.hcl.hr/vijest/pubg-je-zabranjen-u-nepalu-jer-djeca-postaju-nasilna-od-igranja-138549/

Žalac, Z. (2019b, April 19). Fortnite i PUBG su od sada službeno zabranjeni u Iraku. Retrieved from https://www.hcl.hr/vijest/fortnite-pubg-sada-sluzbeno-zabranjeni-iraku-138919/

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The link between video game violence and real life violence

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by Karlo Bojčić Through several generations there has been an ongoing scientific debate that exposure to violent media could lead to violent individual's behaviour. This includes diverse examples through history, such as cinema, comic, music and television. One of the debate elements was that video games have greater influence on individual's behaviour.

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There have been studies, headlines and speculation about the effects of video games on children for years. It's time for us to sift through the hearsay and scare tactics and focus on what's important: what matters is not if your child plays video games, but how your child plays video games. So, what exactly determines when video games are good and when they are bad, you ask?

Video games exercise your children's strengths and allow them to learn in a fun, non-threatening environment. They can learn vital skills like decision making, pattern recognition, and creative thinking while playing games like Angry Birds on your tablet. Kids feel rewarded for exercising these strengths when they move on to the next level, which motivates them to apply and develop these skills further (both in the subsequent rounds of Angry Birds and in real life). Daphne Bavelier gives a TED Talk on the effect of gaming on the brain, and she stresses that different games have different effects on the brain. Puzzles improve strategic thinking, problem solving, analysis and memory in gamers. Action games teach kids quick-thinking, accuracy, memory, and many other skills. It was even discovered that surgeons who play video games are faster and more accurate in surgeries. If you can trust your doctor with them, why not let your kids take a crack at it? In fact, gamers are four times quicker at making decisions and executing them!

Some action games (like shooter games) have a controversial reputation; however, they do have some positive effects. Shooter games can improve kids' attention, and give children an outlet for stress in the same way that violent sports (like football) do. But not surprisingly, most pediatricians believe that violent media have negative effects on kids. What matters here is exposure: when kids are repeatedly exposed to violent video games for long periods of time, their aggression might be affected in real life. This is supported by many bodies of research, including this recent (and frightening) one.

More generally, when kids spend more time playing video games, they have less time to participate in other activities. Pretty obvious, huh? But still a very important point. Kids who play video games spend less time reading and doing homework. It is important to manage the time that kids spend playing video games. Everything in moderation, right? Balancing video games with school work, extracurricular activities, and social activities is a great opportunity to teach children time management.

So, how can you use video games for good?

Here are a few ways you can do it:

1. Choose video games that exercise your child's strengths and improve their weaknesses. As mentioned before, some video games may have negative effects on your child, so make sure you are exercising positive strengths and weaknesses.

2. Choose the games that fit your child best using the ratings displayed on the games. No one knows better than you which games fit your child's personality and strengths.

3. Balance the time that your children spend playing video games with your child's other activities. You can allow them to create their own limits and build the schedule that works best for them (with your guidance, of course). This will develop their time management and decision-making skills.

4. If your child is a video game master, he/she might want to make a career of it! Youth Digital offers online gaming design and programming for kids aged 8 - 14.

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Video Games Can Be Positive For Kids Infographic - e-Learning Infographics

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There have been studies, headlines and speculation about the effects of video games on children for years. It's time for us to sift through the hearsay and scare tactics and focus on what's important: what matters is not if your child plays video games, but how your child plays video games.

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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2. Public debates about gaming and gamers

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Of the many conversations about video games in the public discourse, two themes have drawn particular attention: the number of women who play games and

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Your brain on video games | Daphne Bavelier