Parents who are worried about their kids playing violent video games might want to shift their concern. Recent research focuses on the player and not the game itself.
If your kid has certain dispositions — say they are moody, impulsive or unfriendly — then you might want to limit their violent video game playtime. Otherwise, placing all the blame on the violence may be unfair, according to USA Today.
This study, which aims to cut through the confusion surrounding the topic, comes from psychologist Patrick Markey who co-wrote it and had it published in the journal Review of General Psychology.
"Video games are not simply good or bad for everybody," he told a reporter for the paper. "But for some individuals who have certain dispositions, if they play video games they're much more likely to be negatively affected."
Children who are extremely high on neuroticism and extremely low on agreeableness and conscientiousness showed slight increases in hostility when researchers studied 118 participants in 2009.
Previous studies have different results, however, and the debate will likely continue as video games only grow in popularity. Earlier this year JJIE reported that experts who believe violent video games are harmful to teens presented more research than those who believe the opposite.
I knew there was a certain degree of falsehood among the studies. At the end of the day parents just don’t want to admit that they might have failed. It’s parenting that’s to blame, or their genes, not the video games. Superb article.