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Follow me on Twitter @drClaire

There has been a lot of violence in the world in the past few weeks - and many of our children have been watching it.

That's not a good thing.

Between mainstream media and social media, violence reaches far past the places and people it directly affects. Whether it's the latest shooting, the latest terrorist attack, or some other act of violence, television and other media can bring it into every home, every cell phone, and every computer. The recent rise in cell phone videos shared on social media - often raw, unedited, and shocking - has increased the prevalence and reach of violence even further.

Add to that the violence in movies - even G-rated movies - and video games and, as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in their policy statement entitled Virtual Violence, "Media violence is woven into the fabric of American children's lives."

The last comprehensive assessment of "screen" violence was done in 1998, and it found that the typical child will have seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence (including rape and assault) before middle school. That was 18 years ago, 7 years before YouTube began and 9 years before the first iPhone was released. Just think what those numbers are now.

The AAP released the policy statement because they want people to understand that exposure to "virtual" violence, through news, social and entertainment media, can be bad for children. Multiple studies have shown that children exposed to violence may be more aggressive, and they may have behavioral problems. They may also become desensitized to violence, which may be the worst outcome - imagine a generation of children growing up thinking that violence is acceptable and unremarkable.

Every person is different; some are likely to be more affected by others. But as the policy statement points out, given how wide the exposure is, even just a small percentage can end up being a big effect. The example they give:

It's attention and action that the pediatricians most want. Here are some of their suggestions:

Pediatricians and parents should think about the "media diet" of children. What children watch on screens is just as important - if not more important - than how much time they spend in front of screens.

Parents need to be mindful of what their children see and what games they play. To the extent that it's possible, parents should try to watch and play with their children. With older children, especially those with computers and smart phones, it's important to talk about what they are seeing and doing.

Parents need to be mindful of their own media habits. They should not only set a good example, but also be careful of what they watch when their children are nearby.

Parents need to understand that children, especially young children, can't always distinguish between fantasy and reality. "It's just a movie" may not do the trick. Children under 6 shouldn't be exposed to virtual violence at all.

"First person shooter" games, in which killing is the central theme and the goal, are not appropriate for children of any age.

Federal, state, and local legislators should work to provide parents and caregivers more, and more reliable, information about how much violence is in all different kinds of media

The entertainment industry (and news industry) should be more responsible about how it portrays violence. It should limit gratuitous violence and glamorization of violence, and when violence is portrayed, the pain and loss suffered should be portrayed as well.

This isn't about making our media free of violence. It's about being aware of the effect that violence can have on our children and doing everything we can to make that effect as small as possible. Because nothing - no news update, no popular movie, or any video game - will ever be as important as our children.

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Protecting children from the dangers of "virtual violence" - Harvard Health Blog

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Follow me on Twitter @drClaire There has been a lot of violence in the world in the past few weeks - and many of our children have been watching it. That's not a good thing. Between mainstream media and social media, violence reaches far past the places and people it directly affects.

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Whenever there is a mass shooting in the United States, it doesn't take long before pundits suggests violent video games might be to blame.

But a new report from the American Psychological Association (APA) found there is insufficient research to support that link. It found that there is evidence showing the games increase aggression but not enough to demonstrate that playing the games lead to criminal behavior or delinquency.

"Scientists have investigated the use of violent video games for more than two decades but to date, there is very limited research addressing whether violent video games cause people to commit acts of criminal violence," said Mark Appelbaum, the task force chair. "However, the link between violence in video games and increased aggression in players is one of the most studied and best established in the field."

In reviewing more than 150 research papers, the task force found a consistent relationship between the games and an increase in "aggressive behavior" as well as a decrease in "prosocial behavior, empathy, and sensitivity to aggression" and that this behavior continued for some time.

But the task force also found that the video games alone can't explain this aggression. Rather, it concluded that the "accumulation of risk factors," such as antisocial behavior, depression, trouble at home, delinquency or academic problems, also played a role.

"The research reviewed here demonstrates that violent video game use is one such risk factor," the report concluded.

The findings are unlikely to put to rest the concerns about violent video games, especially given that over 90 percent of children play video games, with 85 percent of those games containing some violence. The games came under fire in 2012 after Adam Lanza gunned down 20 children and six teachers Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. It later turned out that he was obsessed with violent video games, prompting calls from some members of Congress for restrictions on them.

Ohio State University's Brad J. Bushman, who has done extensive work on violent media including games and aggression, said he disagreed with the APA conclusion that there is no link between violent video games and violent behavior, although he acknowledged it is difficult to prove a link in an experimental setting.

"One can never know for sure whether playing violent video games causes violent criminal behavior, because it is unethical for researchers to allow participants to engage in violent criminal behavior in their laboratory experiments," Bushman told CBS News. "However, there certainly is a link between playing violent video games and violent criminal behavior, although it is not as strong as the link between playing violent video games and less serious aggressive behavior."

In one experiment in which he took part, adolescent boys were given the opportunity to blast an ostensible opponent with loud noise through headphones after being randomly assigned to play a violent or nonviolent video game. The results showed that boys who played a violent game and strongly identified with the violent game character selected noise levels loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage to their partner.

But other studies have found no link, including one from the University of Missouri in April that found violent video games did not cause gamers with Autism Spectrum Disorder - something Lanza is believed to have suffered - to act violently. Another 2013 study found that violent video games such as "Mortal Kombat," "Halo," and "Grand Theft Auto" did not trigger violence in teenagers with symptoms of depression or attentions deficit disorder.

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the U.S. video game industry, criticized the APA study, noting that youth violence has declined to a 40-year low during the "video game epoch."

"Considering the APA's long-standing bias against and attacks on video games, this slanted report is not surprising," the group said in a statement. "Numerous medical professionals, researchers, and courts all debunk the fundamental thesis of their argument. In tearing down similar faulty research, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically ruled that 'psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively.' We could not state it better."

The APA task force acknowledged that more research is needed on the issue, including studies that looked at the impact of violent video games on gamers younger than 10, potential gender differences in the response of gamers as well as the effects on different ethnic groups.

But even with the limited evidence of criminal behavior, the APA is calling on the gaming industry to design video games that include increased parental control over the amount of violence the games contain.

The APA's Council of Representatives, earlier this month, also adopted a resolution encouraging the Entertainment Software Rating Board to refine its video game rating system "to reflect the levels and characteristics of violence in games, in addition to the current global ratings" and for developers to design games that are appropriate to users' age and psychological development.

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Do violent video games lead to criminal behavior?

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Whenever there is a mass shooting in the United States, it doesn't take long before pundits suggests violent video games might be to blame. But a new report from the American Psychological Association (APA) found there is insufficient research to support that link.

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The controversy dates all the way back to Death Race, a 1976 8-bit video game in which cars run over bad guys, turning them into tombstones.

Decades later, experts are still asking, does virtual violence lead to real violence?

A new report from an American Psychological Association task force has concluded that playing violent video games can lead to an increase in aggression.

"The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior ... and decreases in ... empathy and sensitivity to aggression," said the study.

However, even after more than 20 years of studies, the APA says there still isn't enough research into whether games cause actual criminal violence. To reach any conclusions about whether playing a first-person shooter will increase the likelihood that someone will shoot people in real life, there need to be more studies.

The seven-person task force reviewed 170 studies on video game violence and consulted with experts in the field. The group found a number of areas where current research is insufficient. They want more investigation into the difference between aggression in male and female players, the impact of video games on young children, and associations between violent game play and people with risk factors such as depression and socioeconomic status.

Even though there's a gray area around acts of violence, the APA is confident that the research establishes a link between games and aggression. For now, it is asking for better parental controls on video games, with more granular ratings to indicate different levels and types of violence. The group's resolution also asks game makers to design games that are age appropriate for younger players.

Not everyone agrees with the APA's report. When the task force was first announced two years ago, 230 researchers sent a letter to the APA voicing concerns about the undertaking.

"I think we need to be honest that the evidence is all over the place," said Chris Ferguson, the department chair of technology at Florida's Stetson University. Ferguson researches video games and violence, and was one of the original 10 authors behind the letter.

He cites a number of issues with the APA's approach, including selecting people for the task force who skew older (the average age is 62) and who have a known anti-video game bias. The APA doesn't adequately define what "aggression" actually is, and wasn't transparent about which studies it used, says Ferguson.

"I think the one good thing about the report is that this is the first time an organization had come out to say, 'there is no evidence of a link with violence.'"

CNNMoney (San Francisco) First published August 17, 2015: 3:57 PM ET

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Decades later, experts are still asking, does virtual violence lead to real violence? A new report from an American Psychological Association task force has concluded that playing violent video games can lead to an increase in aggression. "The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior ...

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Despite grave concerns that violent video games lead to aggression, the research suggests otherwise

Getty Images

It's the holiday season and that means that kids by the millions are asking Santa for the opportunity to blow away enemy soldiers and aliens on the Xbox or PlayStation. Should parents be worried about buying such gifts? Violent video games (VVG) are now an established part of our culture; recent releases of games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Skyrim have been setting sales records for media releases (topping even blockbuster movies) and garnishing lavish reviews for their artistic merits. Ten years ago, scholars and politicians raised the possibility that such games might contribute to school shootings or other youth violence. What happened to these concerns?

Quite simply, the research just hasn't panned out. For one thing, even while video game sales have skyrocketed, youth violence plummeted to its lowest levels in 40 years according to government statistics. Secondly, it has been increasingly recognized that much of the early research on VVG linking them to increased aggression was problematic: most studies used outcome measures that had nothing to do with real-life aggression and failed to control carefully for other important variables, such as family violence, mental health issues or even gender in many studies (boys both play more VVG and are more aggressive.) This was something the U.S. Supreme Court recognized when, after considering California's attempt to ban the sale of VVG to minors in Brown v. EMA, it stated on June 27, 2011, "These studies have been rejected by every court to consider them, and with good reason."

( MORE: Top Ten Fantasy RPG Video Games)

More recent research has not found that children who play VVG are more violent than other kids, nor harmed in any other identifiable fashion. A recent longitudinal study of my own, following 165 10- to 14-year-old boys and girls over a three-year period, now in press with Journal of Psychiatric Research, finds no long-term link between VVG and youth aggression or dating violence. Another recent longitudinal study with young German children published in Media Psychology by Maria von Salisch and colleagues similarly found no links between VVG and aggression. Other scholars have found, as have Andrew Przybylski and colleagues writing in the Review of General Psychology, that matching video game conditions more carefully in experimental studies with how they are played in real life makes VVG's effects on aggression essentially vanish. Since most video game experiments only have players play for short periods of time, often for as little as 10 minutes, and violent games tend to be more difficult to learn and have more complex controls than non-violent games, it appears that many participants in these experiments may simply have been frustrated by being cut off so quickly before they even learned how to play, rather than by the violent content of the game. Letting them play long enough to learn the game, or simply providing violent and non-violent games of equal complexity, erases the effects. In fact, experimental research led by my graduate student Jose Valadez found that both violent and non-violent games tend to relax people over time, not anger them.

( MORE: Julie Clark, Baby Einstein Founder: What You Don't Know About the Screen-Time Debate)

Our modern fears over VVGs appear to be in line with prior moral panics over media as diverse as jazz music, comic books and Harry Potter. Granted, too much passive activity, including video games, can contribute to obesity. Like anything else, gaming should be enjoyed in moderation, balanced with outdoor activity and allowing enough time for family and schoolwork. A very small number of kids, about 3%, exhibit signs of pathological gaming. But regarding concerns about aggression, it appears to be that, fairly early on, children learn to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and their brains don't treat these phenomena the same. Santa Claus is a prime example. Despite not only their parents but all of society conspiring to lie to children about the reality of this fellow (complete with old men in red capes at the mall as "evidence"), children can reason out the improbability of his existence by the mid-elementary years. With those kinds of reasoning powers, kids can handle a video game that doesn't even claim to be real.

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Despite grave concerns that violent video games lead to aggression, the research suggests otherwise It's the holiday season and that means that kids by the millions are asking Santa for the opportunity to blow away enemy soldiers and aliens on the Xbox or PlayStation. Should parents be worried about buying such gifts?

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WASHINGTON - Violent video game play is linked to increased aggression in players but insufficient evidence exists about whether the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency, according to a new American Psychological Association task force report.

"The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression," says the report of the APA Task Force on Violent Media. The task force's review is the first in this field to examine the breadth of studies included and to undertake multiple approaches to reviewing the literature.

"Scientists have investigated the use of violent video games for more than two decades but to date, there is very limited research addressing whether violent video games cause people to commit acts of criminal violence," said Mark Appelbaum, PhD, task force chair. "However, the link between violence in video games and increased aggression in players is one of the most studied and best established in the field."

"No single risk factor consistently leads a person to act aggressively or violently," the report states. "Rather, it is the accumulation of risk factors that tends to lead to aggressive or violent behavior. The research reviewed here demonstrates that violent video game use is one such risk factor."

In light of the task force's conclusions, APA has called on the industry to design video games that include increased parental control over the amount of violence the games contain. APA's Council of Representatives adopted a resolution at its meeting Aug. 7 in Toronto encouraging the Entertainment Software Rating Board to refine its video game rating system "to reflect the levels and characteristics of violence in games, in addition to the current global ratings." In addition, the resolution urges developers to design games that are appropriate to users' age and psychological development, and voices APA's support for more research to address gaps in the knowledge about the effects of violent video game use.

The resolution replaces a 2005 resolution on the same topic.

The task force identified a number of limitations in the research that require further study. These include a general failure to look for any differences in outcomes between boys and girls who play violent video games; a dearth of studies that have examined the effects of violent video game play on children younger than 10; and a lack of research that has examined the games' effects over the course of children's development.

"We know that there are numerous risk factors for aggressive behavior," Appelbaum said. "What researchers need to do now is conduct studies that look at the effects of video game play in people at risk for aggression or violence due to a combination of risk factors. For example, how do depression or delinquency interact with violent video game use?"

The task force conducted a comprehensive review of the research literature published between 2005 and 2013 focused on violent video game use. This included four meta-analyses that reviewed more than 150 research reports published before 2009. Task force members then conducted both a systematic evidence review and a quantitative review of the literature published between 2009 and 2013. (A systematic evidence review synthesizes all empirical evidence that meets pre-specified criteria to answer specific research questions - a standard approach to summarizing large bodies of research to explore a field of research.) This resulted in 170 articles, 31 of which met all of the most stringent screening criteria.

"While there is some variation among the individual studies, a strong and consistent general pattern has emerged from many years of research that provides confidence in our general conclusions," Appelbaum said. "As with most areas of science, the picture presented by this research is more complex than is usually included in news coverage and other information prepared for the general public."

In addition to Appelbaum, members of the APA Task Force on Violent Media were: Sandra Calvert, PhD; Kenneth Dodge, PhD; Sandra Graham, PhD; Gordon N. Hall, PhD; Sherry Hamby, PhD; and Larry Hedges, PhD.

See the report

(PDF, 413KB) and policy (PDF, 308KB) here.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes more than 122,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.

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APA Review Confirms Link Between Playing Violent Video Games and Aggression

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WASHINGTON - Violent video game play is linked to increased aggression in players but insufficient evidence exists about whether the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency, according to a new American Psychological Association task force report.

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Video Games Don't Cause Violent Behavior

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Video Games: Harmless Fun or Catalysts for Aggression?

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Video Games: Harmless Fun or Catalysts for Aggression?

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As a child who always loved to play video games, many of them being violent for my age and others, not so much. I would also like to say that despite all those violent video games, I myself turned out to be this perfect angel who can do no harm, but that is definitely not the case. So I turn my case to the actual research conducted on this topic. Before that though, I would like to say that I in no way condone very young kids play M or R rated games, an issue that has seen a rise in occurrences, but I blame that mostly on the parents. There have been many studies that have "proven" video games to be linked to an increase in aggression, one of these prominent, controversial studies being conducted by the APA. The article states that, "The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition and aggressive affect, and decreases in pro social behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression," or in simpler words, video games do cause violence, but the research does admit its faults for lacking evidence for an actual link to criminal behavior. On the contrary though, Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson and many others found contradictions to this correlation, actually finding out that some video games tended to have an opposite on children, calming and relaxing them instead. Another compelling piece of evidence is that youth crime rates have actually gone down while video game rates have actually gone up, so video games causing mass shootings can be almost completely ruled out. The many studies that prove video games cause violence also tend to not focus on other factors in a child's life as well. Such factors like possible mental disorders or physical factors like coming from a broken household that were already present long before they picked up a controller to play contributing to aggressive behavior. In conclusion, video games aren't the main cause for aggressive behavior and shouldn't be looked as the main culprit as there could be more serious underlying problems hidden beneath it. Parents and children should take time to talk to one another about boundaries on more violent video games, especially if they aren't of age.