Christopher J. Ferguson studies the impact of video game violence on children and teens for years. Now the Stetson University professor is gearing up to publish three new studies in the September 2015 issue of Computers in Human Behavior. Ferguson says his research has found no increase in hostility or aggression in juvenile players, including those with mental illnesses. From the journal article’s highlights:
This last bit of information is crucial. The most diehard video game defenders will concede that playing violent games could have an adverse effect on troubled individuals. I’ve been a gamer for more than two decades and have lived with depression and anxiety for a number of years, and even I’ve been open to making this point!
Video Games and Mental Illness
It seems logical that a person who has difficulty distinguishing reality from simulation might be capable of doing harm, intentionally or otherwise. But a large part of this reasoning stems from myths surrounding neuroatypical individuals, such as those with autism or schizophrenia.
Similarly, geek subcultures continue to fight against pervasive myths left over from the occultphobia of the 1980s and ’90s. You’re familiar with the benign ones that say all gamers are middle-aged, fat virgins who live in their mothers’ basements and eat Hot Pockets all day. But the idea that gaming - or any other escapist hobby - could drag children away from God and into the clutches of Satan himself looms in the backgound.
Bringing these two groups - video game players and those with mental illnesses - together for his study, Ferguson finds that violent media do not cause or contribute to antisocial attitudes in youth. From “Digital Poison? Three Studies Examining the Influence of Violent Video Games on Youth”:
Ferguson, then, is addressing the specific problem of misunderstandings about both mental illness and geek subcultures. Because neither can be extricated from the other, in this case, the issue at hand is intersectional. That’s what makes Ferguson’s work so important, and the fact that he is fully aware of the intersectionality of his research subject makes him the perfect scholar for the job.
Read more of Ferguson’s research at the link above, or check out these studies in the September issue of Computers in Human Behavior.
