Gaming Aggression: It's not what you play - it's what you do

As my students are forming a thesis to show that video games increase short-term aggression, a new study comes out from Texas A&M International University which conducted a meta-analysis of research into violent video games. The results of the study match what our students found. Here are a few comments from the author of the study from the story in gamepolitics.com:

"Overall results of the study found that although violent video games appear to increase people’s aggressive thoughts (which it would not be surprising that people are still thinking about what they were just playing), violent games do not appear to increase aggressive behavior. "

"Thus it was concluded that there is little evidence from the current body of literature on violent video games that playing violent video games is either causally or correlationally associated with increases in aggressive behavior. "

There is an interesting and worthwhile discussion about what players do with the increases in aggression. If we can prove increases in aggression, the question is what do we, as gamers, do with that aggression? Does it result in action? If gamers are aware of this emotional reaction can they prevent violent action? I started this discussion with the English students and I would be interested to know your opinions as well.

I say yes, increases in aggression levels does not need to result in violent action. What do you think?

Find the full story on gamepolitics.com here...