November 4, 2008

RESEARCH / GAMES: New Study 'Strongly Suggests' Reducing Youth Exposure to Violent Videogames

New Study 'Strongly Suggests' Reducing Youth Exposure to Violent Videogames

Multi-national research reveals Japanese and Americans are equally affected.

By Kyle Stallock, 11/03/2008

Various researchers from Iowa State University in Ames, the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis, and Ochanomizu University, Keio University, the University of Tsukuba, and Takasaki City University of Economics in Japan, observed hundreds of students from nine to fifteen years of age in both the United States and Japan at two points in time separated by three to six months. They tested "whether high exposure to violent videogames increases physical aggression over time in both high- (United States) and low- (Japan) violence cultures." The summarized results are as follows:

"Habitual violent videogame play early in the school year predicted later aggression, even after controlling for gender and previous aggressiveness in each sample. Those who played a lot of violent videogames became relatively more physically aggressive. Multisample structure equation modeling revealed that this longitudinal effect was of a similar magnitude in the United States and Japan for similar-aged youth and was smaller (but still significant) in the sample that included older youth."

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