Quote:
The longitudinal work, like this year's elementary-school study, is a useful middle ground: It shows that across the board, playing more-violent video games predicts higher levels of verbal and physical aggression later on. It doesn't matter why the kids started playing violent games or whether they were already more aggressive than their peers; the point is that a year of game-playing likely contributes to making them more aggressive than they were when they started. If we had only one of the three kinds of studies, the findings wouldn't mean much. But taken together, the body of research suggests a real connection.
It's probably not the healthiest outlet for aggression if the child already exhibits some sort of overly aggressive traits, but I don't know that it's as simple as saying it can cause the behavior. Multiple factors can and do apply.
What worries me more than anything is that the games aren't really age-specific. Joph will only buy Jr. "kid" games, and he has a game where this guy flies out of his car during daredevil-type jumps, and the object of the game for him has become less about making the jumps and more about finding new ways to kill this guy. While I understand it's in good fun, I made sure to tell him that it was hard for me to watch, because even though "it's just a game", I see people with real-life injuries everyday. It was troubling to see such a sweet boy cackling at this broken body, and I wanted to make sure to affirm that these things *do* happen to folks, and aren't funny.
Then again, I don't even like scary or violent movies. I'm a peace-freak.