Video games are used by scientists, the military and people of all ages. Video games use an interface design and human directions on a video device. The first video game was patented by the United States, in 1948, and was used as a missile simulator for the military. It was referenced as a “cathode-ray tube amusement device.” (Saleem) Ralph Baer, the “father of video games,” created the first video game, on a television in 1978, named “Odyssey.” This led the way for independent companies to start creating their own designs. The first commercially successful game was founded in 1972, by Atari, and was named “Pong.” In 1974, Midway Games decided to enter the world of video games and created “Space Invaders.” This kicked off the golden age of arcade games. In 1980, color came to arcade games when Namco released “Pacman.” The golden age of arcade games came to an end in the 1990s, after Nintendo and Sega became successful. The sales in arcade games had decreased while the sales in consoles had increased drastically. Consoles brought video games out of public spaces and brought to the homes of the public. The age of consoles, considered from the mid 1990s to current times, include the creation of Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation and XBOX.  

“Donkey Kong”, created by Nintendo in 1981, was the earliest video game to have a story line. This influenced other companies to start adding stories to their games and throughout the years, video games introduced violence into the storylines. The driving simulation, “Death Race,” was removed from an Illinois amusement park in 1976. (Stanton) According to a news report at the time, there were numerous complaints that the video game had encouraged players to run over pedestrians to score points. “Through a series of subsequent newspaper reports, the US National Safety Council labelled the game “gross” and motoring groups demanded its removal from distribution.” (Stanton) The outrage over “Death Race” was the first major panic over video game violence. “Mortal Kombat,” created in 1993, was the first video game to feature lifelike and realistic violence. This led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), after multiple congressional hearings. “The Entertainment Software Rating Board is a non-profit, self-regulatory organization that assigns ratings for video games and apps so parents can make informed choices. The ESRB rating system encompasses guidance about age-appropriateness, content and interactive elements. As part of its self-regulatory role for the video game industry, the ESRB also enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines and helps ensure responsible web and mobile privacy practices.” (Entertainment Software Association) The ESRB created a system to rate the games developers are creating. An “E” rated game is for everyone, and “E10+” rated game if for everyone, ten years of age and older, a “T” rated is for teens, and an “M” rated game is for adults aged seventeen years of age and older. The video game panic reached new heights after the Columbine massacre in 1999. Several families filed lawsuits against twenty-five entertainment companies after it was revealed that the two shooters had played violent video games. This pushed lawmakers to pass new regulations on the sales of violent video games. After the numerous failed attempts at passing laws to regulate the sales of violent video games, the government pushed for researchers to study the links between violent video games and criminal violence amongst adults and children. Over the course of thirty years, video games have been studied by psychologists, educators, statisticians, pediatricians and criminologists. Although there is not enough credible evidence to link violent video games to criminal violence, research has shown playing violent video games can cause mild aggression in children and adolescents. 

The definition of violence and aggression as outcomes have different meanings throughout the research done on the correlation between violent video games and aggression. “The violent video game literature uses a variety of concepts, terms, and definitions in considering aggression and aggressive outcomes, sometimes using violence and aggression interchangeably or using aggression to represent the full range of aggressive outcomes studied.” (Applebaum, et al.) This lack of precision, in the definition of aggression, has caused some debate among the researchers. Criminologists, pediatricians, physicians, and psychologists approach the phenomenon of aggression and violence differently. (Applebaum, et al.) “In psychological research, aggression is usually conceptualized as behavior that is intended to harm another. Violence can be defined as an extreme form of physical aggression or as the intentional use of physical force or power that either results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in, harm.”  (Applebaum, et al.) This definition is important to consider the implications of the research. 

It is difficult to define violence in video game literature. Many researchers have found that video game violence is not well specified or controlled. (Applebaum, et al.) Most of the studies that have been done use the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to determine if the video game is considered violent. The ESRB classifies a video game as violent if it has crude humor; profanity; alcohol, tobacco, and drug use; sexual content or nudity; and gambling. 

The research done by psychologists and other scientist, consistently proves that violent video games can cause aggression in children and adolescents. The American Psychological Association established a Task Force on Violent Media in 2005. “The goal of the task force to ensure that APA’s resolution on the topic continues to be informed by the best science currently available and that it accurately represents the research findings directly related to the topic.” (Applebaum, et al.) The APA Task Force consists of seven scientists with scientific expertise in the fields of meta-analyses, child development, learning, digital media, multicultural psychology, violence and aggression. After doing an extensive search on violent video game literature, the Task Force decided to examine a number of meta-analytic reviews that determined violent video game use had a variety of negative outcomes. (Applebaum, et al.)  “Of the thirty-one studies reviewed, fourteen investigated the relation between violent video game use and aggressive behaviors. Aggressive behavior measure included experimental proxy paradigms, such as the administration of hot sauce or a noise blast to a confederate, self- report questionnaires, peer nomination, and teacher rating of aggressiveness. A positive association between violent video game use and increased aggressive behavior was found in most (twelve of fourteen studies).” (Applebaum, et al.) Researchers used children, adolescents and adults in all thirty-one studies. Adults demonstrated aggressive outcomes in thirteen of the experimental studies done. Twelve of the thirteen studies indicated that violent video games have a negative impact, like increased aggression and hostility towards peers, on adults. (Applebaum, et al.) Another interesting find, these studies showed, is that there is a correlation between increased emotional desensitization after playing a violent video game. The APA Task Force came to multiple conclusions after reviewing the thirty-one meta-analyses studies. The research demonstrated a consistent correlation between violent video games and increased hostility towards peer and aggression. “The research converges across multiple methods and multiple samples, with multiple types of measurements demonstrating these relations.” (Applebaum, et al.) The researchers found that increased hostility and increased aggression towards peers were demonstrated over a time span that lasted longer than the laboratory experiments. The researchers have found that laboratory experiments found an impact on increased aggression, and that using the experimental method increased their confidence on the “casual impact of violent video game use.” (Applebaum, et al.)

A new study done by researchers at a large, Midwestern university, found that participants, who played violent video games, punished their opponents more than participants who played nonviolent video games. In this experimental study, participants were aged 9- to 12- year old children and 17- to 29- year old adults. There were five games, that were randomly assigned, on the two different groups of people. “One nonviolent children’s game (Oh No! More Lemmings!); two violent children’s games (Captain Bumper and Otto Matic); and two violent games rated T, for thirteen years and above (Future Cop and Street Fighter). For ethical reasons, the T-rated games were played by only the older participants.” (Anderson, et al. 62) All the video games were played on a computer for twenty minutes by each participant. Participants then rated the games on qualities of the game, such as, how action packed, entertaining, frustrating, boring and violent the games were. The scientists in the study used a “well-validated laboratory measure of aggressive behavior.” (Anderson, et al. 63) “In this task, the participant’s goal is to click the mouse button sooner than his or her opponent after receiving auditory or visual cues. When participants lose, they hear a punishing noise blast at an intensity supposedly set by their opponent.” (Anderson, et al 63) This method has been validated outside of the laboratory and has proven that people who have more aggression or hostility will provide higher noise blasts in the laboratory. The researchers found “that participants who played the violent video games punished their opponents with significantly more high-noise blasts than those who played nonviolent video games.” (Anderson, et al. 67) The researchers also found that routine exposure to violent video games correlated with aggressive behaviors, outside of the laboratory. Craig A. Anderson and his team of scientists, were surprised to find that the nonviolent children’s games they studied had a short-term effect on the aggression of young children. The researchers thought that the T-rated game would have more of an effect on the aggression of children and young adults, but the research was consistent in proving that an E-rated game had just as much of an effect on children and adolescents as a T-rated game did. 

High school students are one of the least studied groups of children and adolescents, when it comes to video game violence and aggression. Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile, and Katherine E. Buckley decided to do a correlational study with high school students at two, small Iowa high schools. They studied one hundred eighty-nine students, seventy- six males, and one hundred thirteen females. (Anderson, et al. 79) Participants received a questionnaire packet that asked questions about personality, beliefs, violence, and exposure to video games and media. “The survey’s included measures of (1) violent TV, movie, and video game exposure. (2) attitudes toward violence, (3) personality trait hostility, (4) personality trait forgivingness, (5) beliefs about how normal violence is, and (6) their frequency of various verbally and physically aggressive behaviors.” (Anderson, et al. 83) The researchers found that high school students who played a greater number of video games with violence had more hostile personalities, more pro-violent attitudes, are less forgiving, believe violence to be more typical and behave more aggressively. (Anderson, et al.) The researchers were surprised to find that there was no difference on the effects of video game violence between boys and girls. Many people assume that boys can have more aggressive tendencies than girls, but the study found that both groups were equally affected. This study also showed that the amount of time adolescents watches violent media or playing violent video games and effect their school performance. The more time adolescents spend in front of a screen, the worse their school performance. (Anderson, et al. 84) 

In a longitudinal study with elementary students, researchers wanted to demonstrate a correlation between children’s games that have violent content and an increase in aggression. The researchers gave surveys at two different times during a school year, to four hundred thirty third, fourth, fifth graders, their peers and their teachers. They measured “(1) their violent TV, movies and video game exposure, (2) whether they see the world in aggressive terms, and (3) whether they had been involved in physical fights this year.” (Anderson, et al. 102) The researchers measure from the children’s peers, “(1) which children were verbally aggressive, (2) relationally aggressive, (3) physically aggressive, or were (4) positive and prosocial in their behaviors, as well as (5) which children they liked or disliked. “(Anderson et al. 102) The researchers asked the teachers, about the children’s relational aggression, physical aggression, positive pro social behaviors, and school performance. (Anderson et al. 102) This study proved to researchers that children who had more exposure to violent video games, showed an increase in hostile tendencies towards peers. The research also showed that “children who played more violent video games early in the school year changed to see the world in a more aggressive way and also changed to become more verbally and physically aggressive later in the school year.” (Anderson et al. 103) The feedback from the teachers and peers also let the researchers know that children who had higher aggression, related to violent video game exposure, were rejected by their peers. This longitudinal study shows that the changes in aggressive behavior in elementary students is noticed by their peers and teachers. 

Many people would argue with the findings of these studies. Video game violence and the effects it has on children and adolescents have been studied for over thirty years. Some researchers debate the studies, and review them, offering other options for how they should be conducted. After the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that there is reasonable evidence that violent media leads to aggression in children, scientists looked at how the research was being done. In the study done at the Midwestern university, the scientists let the participants control the pitch of the noises to give their opponents. “Demonstrating a link between this type of virtual violence and real-world aggression, even in the laboratory is fraught with difficulties. Researchers need to expose two groups of people to two different media stimuli. Then, after exposure, participants are given an opportunity to aggress against somebody, often by blasting them with loud noises. If the violent-media group is more aggressive (i.e., louder, longer noise blasts) than the non-violent-media group, it is concluded there is an effect of violent media.” (Hilgard) Scientists argue that in order for this type of study to work, the two video games need to be the same in all aspects, except that one has violence while the other one does not. It can also be argued that the video games, in these studies, are too different. “If the violent video game is frustrating, while the non-violent game is relaxing- one cannot tell whether it is the violence or the frustration that causes the differences in aggressive behavior.” (Hilgard) “The Anderson et. al research group has assessed the “noise blast” aggression measure differently across multiple studies, with little explanation as to why. …Previous analyses have suggested that unstandardized measures tend to inflate effect size estimates, as noted, potentially because researchers may ignore the “worst” outcomes and select the “best” outcomes to interpret.” (Ferguson 175) 

Another argument people may have been video games are an art form and can help children and adolescents determine their freedom of expression. Video games contain a number of unique features and functions. They are animated and this can help children separate what is “fantasy” and what is the “real world”. Some video games include violence, but because of the animation, it is generally accepted that the world of video games is fantasy. “Concern has arisen on the basis that in order to succeed in violent video games, players must personally choose and implement violent strategies.” (Crump) The media has used extreme examples of violence to persuade the public in believing video games can cause criminal violence. “Moreover, it is problematic that in making their reports, the media focuses on minority examples and extreme situations. While such cases may ‘highlight a potential correlation between media violence and action,’ they do no effectively prove causation.” (Crump) The media uses video game violence as a scapegoat to provide an answer to a complex question. 

In conclusion, video games, violent and nonviolent, have an impact on aggression in children, adolescents, and adults. The evidence is overwhelming to prove that video games have an impact on people. There is no one truly “immune” from the effects of violent media exposure.  The studies done on children and adolescents show that parents are in a powerful position. “Setting limits on the amount and content of screen media appears to be a protective factor for children.” (Anderson, et al. 103) If parents set limits on the content and amount of screen time, children’s grades will not drop, they will be more likely to interact with their peers and be less hostile and aggressive towards other children. 
