Update: Studies Show Violent Video Games Worse than AIDS

Print Version

December 2, 2007—University of Michigan professor Rowell Huesmann has pulled together 50 years of studies on the effects of violent media on young people. He proves that violent video games are a major public health threat as a cause of violent behavior. In fact, of a list of correlations each of ten major public health threats with the behavior which heightens each threat, only the correlation of smoking with lung cancer, narrowly exceeds the correlation of violent media, especially video games, with violent behavior. The correlation of violent videogames with violent behavior is far stronger than the correlation of so-called unprotected sex, with HIV-AIDS.

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The study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, the official journal of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, is grabbing international media attention. Dr. Huesmann warns that video game units, which are now in 83 percent of homes, have significant long-term effects. Under the heading, "Desensitization," he writes, "Repeated exposure to emotionally activating media or video games can lead to habituation of certain natural emotional reactions. This process is called 'desensitization.'" He continues, "the effects on stimulating long-term increases in violent behavior should be even greater for video games than for TV, movies, or Internet displays of violence."

Dr. Huesmann concludes: "The evidence... is also compelling that children's exposure to violent electronic media, including video games, leads to long-term increases in their risk for behaving aggressively and violently..."

"One valid remaining question is whether the size of this effect is large enough that one should consider it to be a public health threat. The answer seems to be YES." [emphasis in original]. The article is at: http://www.jahonline.org/article/PIIS1054139X07003916/fulltext

© 2007 Society for Adolescent Medicine