Study: Violent video games may not desensitize kids
February 24th, 2011 - 1:16 am ICT by Aishwarya BhattToronto, Feb 23 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A new study has assured worried parents that violent video games may not make their children desensitized.
The study was carried out by Canadian researchers and published in the January edition of the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.
The researchers compared children who spent time playing games to those that do not. At the end of the study it was realized that there were not much difference between the two groups when they were shown negative or violent pictures.
A doctoral candidate in the department of psychology at Ryerson University in Toronto, Holly Bowen, who is also the study author told reporters that, “People who play video games didn’t differ in memory, and physical arousal wasn’t different between gamers and non-gamers. And there was no difference in how each group felt after seeing negative or violent pictures.”
Earlier studies seemed to be in contradiction of this study. The researchers explained that most of the earlier studies tested the gamers immediately after they played the game. However this research took the long time approach to the gamers.
122 undergraduate psychology students were recruited for the study. The average age of the participants was 19 years old. Forty-five of the students said that they have played video game during the last six months while the remaining 77 said they have not been exposed to video games.
The students were all shown violent images and their reactions recorded. It was realized that all the students had similar reaction to the images.
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