Estudos videogame e violencia

Video Game Effects—Confirmed, Suspected, and Speculative
A Review of the Evidence
Christopher P. Barlett Craig A. Anderson Edward L. Swing
Iowa State University, USA

Simulation & Gaming Volume 40 Number 3 June 2009 377-403 © 2009 SAGE Publications 10.1177/1046878108327539 http://sg.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

This literature review focuses on the confirmed, suspected, and speculative effects of violent and non-violent video game exposure on negative and positive outcomes. Negative outcomes include aggressive feelings, aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior, physiological arousal, and desensitization, whereas positive outcomes include various types of learning. Multiple theories predict, and empirical findings reveal, that violent video game exposure is causally related to a host of negative outcomes and a few positive outcomes. Some non-violent video games have been causally related to some specific positive learning effects as well as certain types of visual cognition (e.g., spatial rotation abilities) and may be associated with some negative effects on executive control and attention disorders. Keywords: aggression; computer games; desensitization; General Aggression Model; General Learning Model; learning; negative effects; positive effects; prosocial effects; video games; violence; visual cognition

ecent statistics suggest that youth in the United States play video games an average of 9 hours per week (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004). Survey research has found that approximately 21.4% of college freshmen played video games at least 6 hours per week during their senior year in high school (Cooperative Institutional Research Program, 2005), and approximately 70% of college students consider themselves avid gamers (Weaver, 2003). Statistics comparing males and females reveal that boys play violent video games more frequently than girls (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2007; Gentile et al., 2004). Any way you look at it, video