Violent video games make parents concerned about how their children behave in the real world. Numerous studies link violence on the screen with the increased unrest in the streets and enhanced gun ownership. Scientist claim that merely watching a violent content on the TV children keep cruel messages in their mind for some time which will inevitably reflect in their actions. However, a new research conducted by an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo suggests that violent behavior online causes the increased sensitivity in players towards violated moral codes.
According to Matthew Grizzard, the assistant professor who searched the field for a brand-new evidence, immoral behavior evokes the sense of guilt in players. In the real life, they tend to engage in voluntary activities instead of making a gang and crushing windows in the dead of night. The group of people chosen for the experiment played a violent video game where they had to break basic moral values. The study was published in 2014 in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking journal.
Researchers argue that media exposure evokes an emotional response that influences the judgment of players. In most cases, they feel a strong cognitive dissonance while playing a criminal or a terrorist. Gamers frequently oppose their real self to the character in the video game that acts so much unlike them. But still, these findings refer mostly to young adults who clearly realize the value of moral standards. Kids in their early teen, on the other hand, may have a distorted perception of reality due to playing online for too long. That is why parents need to control the content to which little kids expose themselves.