Tech Shout!

A researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia, (MU) USA, through an intense study, has found that playing violent games alters a person’s brain function and de-sensitizes chronic players to real world violence.

Bruce Bartholow, assistant professor - psychological sciences, MU, said, “Most of us naturally have a strong aversion to the sight of blood and gore. Surgeons and soldiers may need to overcome these reactions, in order to perform their duties. But, for most people, a diminished reaction to the effects of violence is not adaptive. It can reduce inhibitions against aggressive behavior and increase the possibility of inflicting violence on others.”

Bartholow, along with Brad Bushman from the University of Michigan and Marc Sestir at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, asked 39 male undergraduate students how often they played their five favourite video games, and how violent the games were. After which, the researchers showed participants a series of images on a computer screen, including emotionally neutral images, such as a man riding a bicycle; violent images, such as a man holding a gun to another man’s head; and negative, but non-violent images, such as a dead dog. As participants viewed these images, the researchers measured a type of brainwave, known as P300, which is believed to reflect how people evaluate images like these.

After viewing the pictures, participants were told that the last part of the experiment involved a competition with another participant, to see who could press a button faster following a series of tones. Before each tone, participants set the level of a noise blast that their opponent would receive if the opponent lost. In reality there was no opponent.

The researchers found that the participants who routinely played violent video games showed less brain reactivity, measured by diminished amplitude of the P300 brainwaves, when they viewed the violent images compared to the equally negative, non-violent image. They also found that the smaller a participant’s brain response to violent images, the more aggressively he behaved during the final part of the experiment.

Barthlow said, These findings are among the first to link chronic violent video game play, diminished brain responses and aggressive behavior. People often assume that any negative effects of playing violent games are short-lived, but these results suggest that repeated exposure to violent video games has lasting negative consequences for both brain function and behaviour.