It turns out that people did not become violent even if playing "Grand Theft Auto" full of violence feeling for 2 months

There is a controversy as to whether or not people will become violent by being influenced by playing violent games. Even in the United States where gunshots occur frequentlyYou should regulate violent games and moviesAlthough the opinion is overtaken, a game in which violent depiction still appears as "Grand Theft AutoFrom the results of research that investigated the influence of playing for 2 months, it has become apparent that the influence was almost not confirmed.

Does playing violent video games cause aggression? A longitudinal intervention study | Molecular Psychiatry
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-018-0031-7

Two months of daily GTA causes "no significant changes" in behavior | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/03/two-months-of-daily-gta-causes-no-significant-changes-in-behavior/

This research was carried out by the research team of Max Planck Institute of Education in Germany and the medical center of Hamburg-Eppendorf University Medical Center. It was investigated how much influence would appear by dividing 90 subjects into two groups and playing violent games over a long period of time.

The important point in this survey is that "I made the game play for a long period of two months," and "I am tracking the changes that appear after the period for several months". Research on past violent games has mainly taken the method of letting the game play for a relatively short period of time and measuring the amount of adrenaline immediately after the end of the play. However, the research team who thought this was insufficient for confirming the influence of the game in the real society lengthens the period related to the game, and furthermore, after the game play period has ended, the follow-up survey By doing so, I am investigating "the influence of violent games" in the situation closer to the real world.


Among studies on "connection between games and violence" is often referred to as "priming effect". This is the effect that information (prime) and others heard and heard beforehand influences the information (target) processing after that, which is often taken when considering the influence of violent games on players. Results that deny the impact of this priming effect have also been announced in previous studies.

A research result is announced that it is not related to "playing a game" and "being violent" - GIGAZINE


A research team led by Simone Khan adopted a method to allow the subject to play the game for a sufficiently long period in order to eliminate the influence of the priming effect from the investigation result. The 90 participants who participated in the survey included a group playing a violent game "Grand Theft Auto V" (GTA V), a group playing a non-violent training simulation game "Sims 3", and It was divided into three groups that do not play games at all. Subjects were adult male and female between 18 and 45 years old, and those who have played little or no game at all for six months before the survey have been selected. Moreover, it is confirmed that there is no problem by conducting psychological test beforehand.


By subjecting the subjects to a questionnaire survey at three timings immediately before starting to play the game, immediately after the game play period of two months finished, and two months after that, the presence or absence of influence Measure. The contents of the questionnaire are "aggressiveness" "sexistic tendency" "empathy" "interpersonal skill" "impulsivity" "mental health", and "Execution function"52 questionnaires that have been proven in each field are being used.

Based on the data obtained in this way, the research team conducted 208 comparisons. Then, only in the three results, it was found that the influence was received by the game with a probability of 95% surely, and no significant difference was found from the remaining data. From here, the research team has concluded that "there was no harmful effect by playing violent games".

This is likely to be a result that will be received with pleasure from game supporters, but on the other hand, in this survey,Game enhances multitasking abilityIt is also said that the effect of being confirmed is not confirmed, and it seems that research that asks whether the influence of the game is still still can not fit. This survey is targeted at adults, but it is also a matter of whether there are differences in result depending on age group.