by Ed Vitagliano
(AgapePress) – New research has strengthened the proposition that some media violence may provoke aggressive responses in children who absorb those images.
A study of over 600 eighth- and ninth-graders by the National Institute on Media and the Family demonstrated a possible link between violent video games and aggression in children. It found that children who played violent video games saw the world as a more hostile place, argued with teachers more frequently, were more likely to be involved in physical confrontations and fights, and performed less well in their academic pursuits.
According to a press release from the organization, “The research is significant because it is the first research that demonstrates that children who are least aggressive in nature but are exposed to violent video games, are more likely to get into fights than children who are very aggressive but do not play violent video games.”
In another study, Kansas State University psychologist John Murray used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine whether violent movie clips produced any reaction in the brains of eight children (ages 8 to 13) who watched. According to USA Today, the kids were shown a six-minute fight scene from Rocky IV, then six minutes each of a non-violent PBS segment and a blank screen marked simply with an “X.”
The MRIs revealed much greater activity in those sections of the brain that deal with “fight or flight” reactions to personal danger when compared to MRIs done before the children watched TV or those done while watching the PBS sequence.
Murray says that while kids know that TV violence is not real, the brain apparently does not, adding that the children's brains “are treating it as real, the gospel truth.”
Whether or not such brain reaction triggers actual aggression is still not clear, although Murray told USA Today the studies “give us great reason for concern.”
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
