For years gaming has been blamed by the media for many acts of violence by teens and adults, rarely with evidence of any kind to back it up. But that is about to change, as a new study is attempting to objectively measure the effects of gaming on the minds of children and youth.
This groundbreaking study consists of several different groups, some for control purposes and others playing different types of games for varying lengths of time. Through rigorous testing the cumulative effects of exposure to gaming can finally be measured.
Control Group – Subjects in this group were selected for the non-gaming “leave them alone” group. Members were identified as they passed the study office and quietly followed by private investigators over the course of the study. In order to avoid compromising the results participants were not informed of their participation, it was assumed they would agree, so their apartments, cars, and all personal possessions were investigated without their knowledge.
Over the course of the two year study, approximately 20 of the 1000 people observed in control group 1 purchased a video game system, and subsequently their levels of aggression and violence were seen to go up – some even resorting to murder of house flies. While this may seem trivial, the other 980 participants did not kill any houseflies – so it must be conclusive proof.
Gaming Group 1 – 1000 participants were provided with a video game system as well as a single game – Beautiful Katamari – to play for the next 2 years. The actual backgrounds and potential criminal records of test subjects were not investigated prior to the start of the test. As the test was conducted to measure the amount of damage done by gaming, any prior criminal activity was deemed to be unconnected, after all, just because a person is a hardened criminal it doesn’t mean they are necessarily more likely to commit a crime than a law-abiding citizen…right?
After the closure of the study due to lawsuits of stalking relating to control group 1, several interesting effects were seen in Gaming Group 1. Several participants painted their entire houses in bright colours and started speaking in high pitched voices – they were dismissed under suspicion of insanity. The vast majority of the test subjects showed no changes what-so-ever in either social or criminal behavior – as a result they were also not considered in the final conclusions. A very small group, approximately 35, developed an obsession with stealing everyday objects – a condition known as kleptomania. While this may seem trivial, a subset of this group also developed an urge to create giant balls out of the stolen objects and roll them through town, running over pedestrians and crushing cars.
Gaming Group 2 – 500 participants were provided with a gaming system as well as a game in the Grand Theft Auto series. Participants were monitored over the following two years for changes in behavior. Unfortunately 450 participants stopped playing the game after finishing and moved on to other games or stopped playing after losing interest. As they did not provide valid proof to back up our conclusions, these participants were disqualified. Of the remaining 50 participants, all showed signs of aggression and criminal activity. Upon further research, all 50 participants turned out to have criminal records for violent crimes – but that is the result of having to use jail occupants after the human rights board denies permission for your study – so the results still stand.
Gaming Group 3 – The final 500 participants were locked in a single room with a single television and copy of a Call of Duty game for each participant. This group was created to address the issues from Group 2, namely the tendency of people to get bored and stop playing a game after a period of time. To encourage participants to continue playing the game, each person was given an electric shock of intensity proportional to the amount of time between button pressing on the controller.
The study ended early when participants started a rebellion after not being fed for several days. While the premature ending of the study was unfortunate it did prove one thing without a doubt: longer exposure to a violent video game does in fact increase aggression and violence in civilians.
Conclusions
When all of this evidence is viewed together, an obvious result is clear: video games cause violence. All of the violent participants remained violent, and all of the participants who were subjected to horrible living conditions became violent as well. These results speak for themselves, which is good because the practitioners of the study were arrested under charges of stalking, breaking and entering, reckless endangerment, and cruelty towards humanity – but they got the result they wanted, so society benefits in the end. Now when a horrible crime is committed and a video game is found at the suspect’s house we can end the investigation right there. No reason to spend taxpayers money on wasteful things like evidence and proof, it is obviously the result of playing violent video games.
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