In one of my earlier post I mentioned the story on Science Daily about Craig Anderson's study. Since then I have taken a look at his work, or meta-study--a study that uses other studies as its data.
It was difficult to assess how definitive his findings are especially since the paper is written for an audience that is well-versed in the study of psychology. It also made it difficult that he talks vaguely about how the negative effects manifest themselves:
"Fourth, and perhaps most important, the newly available longitudinal studies provide further confirmation that playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes. This is especially clear for aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and empathy/desensitization" pg 19.
He leaves the specifics to the other studies, such as what "harmful outcomes" and what their severity is. After reading the study I was not sure whether he meant that long term exposure to violent video games causes people to be mildly less amicable and more easily irritated or if they are more likely to start vicious fights and leave accident victims to die.
He clarifies this a little bit in the story for Science Daily:
"These are not huge effects -- not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang...But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes"
At one point he compares the risk factor of playing violent video games to that of substance use, abusive parents, and poverty, which seemed to me a bit hard to accept. However, in a footnote he explains that the studies for video games also include "less severe forms of physical aggression," whereas the studies for the other factors included mostly "violent behavior," making the comparison less applicable. (pg 20)
He says that the public policy debate should shift focus to address this risk factor. His suggestion about a better informed public sounds like a good idea. There already exists a system whereby the consumer can check what questionable content a game has: the ESRB rating system. This is a similar system to the one the film indsutry has for rating movies. The problem is that parents are not very informed about what the ratings mean and may not be attentive to what content their children are being exposed to when they purchase a game.
Other solutions might begin to creep into the realm of more creative restrictions on video game content, something that will not be welcomed by any developer.
