Skip to main content

Do video games with shooting affect kids' behavior with real guns?

This randomized clinical trial in a university laboratory examined the effects of video games with weapons on children's behavior when they found a real gun.
Pairs of children (ages 8 to 12) were assigned to 1 of 3 versions of the popular video game Minecraft (one child played while the other watched): (1) violent with guns used to kill monsters, (2) violent with swords used to kill monsters or (3) nonviolent with no weapons or monsters. After 20 minutes of game-play, the children played with other toys in another room that included a cabinet with two disabled handguns. The study analysis included 220 children (average age 10) who found a gun while playing. Nearly 62 percent of the 76 children who played the video game with gun violence touched a handgun; about 57 percent of the 74 children who played the game with sword violence touched a gun, and about 44 percent of the 70 children who played the nonviolent version touched a gun, although the differences across groups weren't significant.
Children exposed to violent versions of the video game were more likely to engage in the dangerous behavior of pulling the trigger at themselves or their partner than children exposed to the nonviolent version.
The violent versions with guns and swords were significant even after accounting for other mitigating factors (sex, age, trait aggressiveness, exposure to violent media, attitudes toward guns, presence of firearms in the home, interest in firearms and whether the child had taken a firearm safety course).
The other outcomes (time spent holding a gun and total trigger pulls) weren't statistically significant.
Self-reported consumption of violent media was also a risk for total trigger pulls and trigger pulls at self or partner. The study is limited by the artificial setting of a university laboratory and Minecraft is not a very violent game with no blood and gore (researchers could not ethically expose children to a more violent, age-inappropriate game).
The authors encourage gun owners to secure their firearms and reduce children's exposure to violent video games.
Story Source:
Materials provided by JAMA Network Open. 
Note: Content may be edited.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Major surgery associated with small, long term decline in brain functioning

Major surgery is associated with a small long-term decline in cognitive functioning -- equivalent, on average, to less than five months of natural brain ageing, finds a study in  The BMJ  today. But the odds of substantial cognitive decline also increase after surgery -- approximately doubling -- although the likelihood of this is much lower than after admission to hospital for a medical condition, the findings show. Cognitive decline is the gradual loss of brain functioning that occurs with ageing. It often starts decades before the conventional definition of old age and accelerates with ageing and the presence of an increasing number of underlying health conditions. Certain health issues, such as stroke, can lead to a large "step change" in cognitive decline, and there have been concerns that surgery might also do this, with some patients refusing beneficial surgical procedures as a result, say the researchers. Few previous studies have looked at the potential im...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dark matter may be older than the Big Bang

Dark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe's mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang. The study, published August 7 in  Physical Review Letters , presents a new idea of how dark matter was born and how to identify it with astronomical observations. "The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too," says Tommi Tenkanen, a postdoctoral fellow in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and the study's author. While not much is known about its origins,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scientists challenge notion of binary sexuality with naming of new plant species

A collaborative team of scientists from the US and Australia has named a new plant species from the remote Outback. Bucknell University biology postdoctoral fellow Angela McDonnell and professor Chris Martine led the description of the plant that had confounded field biologists for decades because of the unusual fluidity of its flower form. The discovery, published in the open access journal  PhytoKeys , offers a powerful example of the diversity of sexual forms found among plants. The new species of bush tomato discovered in remote Australia provides a compelling example of the fact that sexuality among Earth's living creatures is far more diverse -- and interesting -- than many people likely realize. Bucknell University postdoctoral fellow Angela McDonnell and biology professor Chris Martine led the study following an expedition last year to relocate populations of the new plant, which were first noted by Australian botanists during the 1970s. Herbarium specimens from th...
Post a Comment
Read more