Videojuegos violentos y agresividad
ISSN: 1139-1723
Year of publication: 2011
Issue Title: Infocomunicación y Educación Social
Issue: 18
Pages: 31-39
Type: Article
More publications in: Pedagogía social: revista interuniversitaria
Sustainable development goals
Abstract
The fact that video games constitute the largest part of audiovisual consumption in our society, more than cinema, video and recorded music combined, is now unquestionable. Also evident is the presence of a great deal of ever more intense violence in the best-selling video games, or those played by minors and young people. It has likewise been demonstrated that minors have easy access to violent and other types o videogames that in theory are not suitable for their age group. The debate regarding the influence of violent video games (VVG) on the behaviour of those who play them has been going on for many years now, ending up in an apparent dialectic stalemate between those raising the alarm about the negative effects of these VVG and those who maintain that their influence is no greater than that of cinema, television or literature. In this article we wish to draw attention to the real dangers involved in the use of VVG based on several facts that point to the need to exert control over the games played by minors in our society. Several different arguments are brought to bear in this vein: 1) The constant alarm raised by international associations in the fields of Paediatrics, Psychiatry, Medicine, Psychology and other agencies concerned with health. 2) The alerts made by consumer and user associations. 3) The institutional response of countries on both sides of the Atlantic in this respect; the European Parliament has also made a pronouncement to this effect. 4) The creation of an international code for user protection, the self-regulating Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) code. 5) Decades of research and the most recent studies by Anderson. The results of these reports and studies shows that exposure to violent video games is directly related to aggressive behaviours, thoughts and attitudes, and at the same time to a decrease in pro-social behaviour and empathy for victims. The consequences for education are immediate, because it seems evident that the debate about the dangers of VVG should give way to how we can implement prevention and prepare our children for the existence of these games that are easily accessed in their immediate surroundings.
Bibliographic References
- ADESE (2010): Asociación española de Distribuidores y Editores de Software de Entretenimiento. Informe anual.
- AEMPI, PROTEGELES, DEFENSOR DEL MENOR (2005): Videojuegos: Guíaparapadres. Guía elaborada por la Asociación PROTEGELES, Asociación de Madres y Padres Internautas y el Defensor del Menor. Madrid
- Amnistía Internacional (2007): Videojuegos yvalores. www.a-i.es
- Anderson y otros (2008): “Longitudinal Effects of Vi- olent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States”. In PEDIATRICS, Oficial Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
- Anderson y otros (2010):“Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic” Review. Psychological Bulletin.
- Anderson, C. A. y Bushman, B.J. (2001): “Effects of vi- olent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, phiysiological arousal, and prosocial behavior”. Pschycological Science, 12 353-359.
- Anderson, C. A. y otros (2003): Violent Video Games: Myths, Facts, and Unanswered questions. Vol 16: No.5. American Psychological Association.
- Defensor del Menor (2005): Videojuegos, menores y res- ponsabilidad de los padres. Estudio realizado por PRO- TEGELES, CIVERTICEyel Defensordel Menor. Madrid.
- Etxeberria, F. (2004): “Niños, pantallas y violencia”. En Revista Comunicación y Pedagogía, nº 199, espe- cial sobre “Utilización didáctica de los videojuegos”. Barcelona.
- Etxeberria, F. (2008): “Videojuegos, consumo y edu- cación”. Revista Electrónica de Teoría de la Educación. Volumen 9, Nº 3, Monográfico sobre Videojuegos: una herramienta en el proceso educativo del “Homo Digitalis”. pp. 11-28
- Etxeberria, Felix (2006): Coordinador del número especial de la Revista Comunicación y Pedagogía, monográfico sobre “Utilización didáctica de los videojue- gos”. Barcelona. (www.comunicacionypedagogía.com)
- Freitas, Sara de (2008):“Emerging trends in serious ga- mes and virtual words”. En Emerging Technologies for learning. Vol. 3
- Gros, B. (coord.) (2008): Videojuegos yaprendizaje. Editorial Graó. Barcelona.
- Manders, Toine (2009): Fecha de acceso: 20 de octubre de 2010 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef =-//EP//NONSGML+ REPORT+A6-2009-0051+0+DOC+WORD+V0//ES
- Subrahmanyan, K. y otros (2003):“New Forms of Elec- tronic Media”. En Singer, D. y Singer J.: Handbook of Children and the Media. Sage Publications. Londres.