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Scientists push back on stereotype about playing violent video games Credits: Social Media
By Tom Llewellyn

Scientists push back on stereotype about playing violent video games

By Tom Llewellyn

New research is challenging the idea that playing violent video games leads to you having less empathy towards real-life violence and trauma.

A 2023 survey found that around 89% of the best-selling video games contained moderate to severe levels of violence, although the theory that violent games lead to more violent gamers has pretty much been around since the industry boom of the 90s. Now, scientists have suggested that excessive violence in video games doesnt have the terrifying impact on human empathy that many protective parents would have you believe.

US-CLINTON-CHILDREN'SVIOLENCE
US President Bill Clinton, holds an advertistment for a childrens first-person shooter video game that reads, “What kind of psycho drives a school bus into a war zone?” during a 01 June 1999 announcement to examine the marketing of violent media to children. Other ads shown suggested, “Get in touch with your gun-toting, cold-blooded-murdering side”. (ELECTRONIC IMAGE) AFP PHOTO/Paul J. RICHARDS (Photo by Paul J. RICHARDS / AFP) (Photo by PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images)

While previous research has shown that playing violent video games is linked to only slight increases in aggression amongst kids and preteens, there is still a preconceived notion that these games can lead to less empathy towards real-life trauma as adults.

That notion has recently been challenged by a team of scientists from the University of Vienna, who used iconic video game Grand Theft Auto V to figure out if violence on the screen led to numbing towards violence in real life.

The team invited 89 male adults to take part, with all the participants having little to no previous experience playing violent video games before. They used brain scans at first to record how each of them felt when one of the researchers received an electric shock.

They then split the sample into two groups: One group was tasked with killing as many GTA 5 characters as they could within a certain timeframe, while the other was asked to take as many in-game photos with other characters as possible.

They then repeated the brain scan/shock phase to see if the violent groups empathetic response had been altered by the experience in GTA 5  and surprise, surprise, there was no significant difference between them.

The scientists concluded that Participants in the VVG [Violent Video Game] group were not desensitized to images of real-world violence, adding that their results indicate that playing violent video games does not numb empathy nor the responses to real-world violence.

Grand Theft Auto Video Game Rakes In 800 Million Dollars Within One Day Of Sales
NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 18: A display copy of Grand Theft Auto V (R) sits on a shelf at the 8 Bit & Up video games shop in Manhattan’s East Village on September 18, 2013 in New York City. The video game raked in more than $800 million in sales in its first 24 hours on the shelves. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Whilst this is fantastic (and fascinating) news for fans of violent video games, the researchers warn that gamers should be cautious about jumping to conclusions when considering the highly controlled conditions and small sample size here.

Precisely because this is such a sensitive topic, we have to be very careful when interpreting these results. The conclusion should not be that violent video games are now definitively proven to be harmless. Our study lacks the data to make such statements.

The team instead leaves us with a simple, yet effective deduction: “A few hours of video game violence have no significant influence on the empathy of mentally healthy adult test subjects. We can clearly draw this conclusion.

The next step is to repeat the study with a larger sample size with the inclusion of female participants and a larger age range, over a longer period of time. After all, participants only played for around seven hours in total, whereas habitual gamers typically play for an average of 16 hours per week.

Similarly, the people surveyed also had little to no prior experience with violent video games before the study began, meaning that the impact on real-world empathy towards violence might be different for long-time gamers.

The most important question is of course: are children and young people also immune to violence in video games? The young brain is highly plastic, so repeated exposure to depictions of violence could have a much greater effect.

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LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 15: People look at a game graphic as workers make final preparations for opening day of E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) at the the Los Angles Convention Center on June 15, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. The annual video game conference runs June 16 through 18. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Here, the researchers also pointed out that studies about the impact of violent video games on young children tend to risk running up against the limits of scientific ethics.