Question: Do you believe that video games are desensitizing?

Rose Turner answered on 13 Jun 2017:

Hi chyna, that’s a great question!

So, first to clarify what we mean by desensitisation. Desensitisation can be thought of the reduction in physiological response (e.g. heart rate, sweating) to the stimulus based on repeated experience of that stimulus (i.e. violence). Usually these physiological responses are accompanied by feelings like fear, disgust, guilt and so on.

There was a longitudinal study (long-term study with data collected at different points over time) a year or so ago that showed that playing violent video games does seem to desensitise people, though this was only in the context of playing violent games in the future. In other words, playing the role of a terrorist in a video game over time made people feel less guilty when they committed awful acts within future games. However it was unclear whether this effect generalised to real-life. Studies that have looked at real-life desensitisation have generated mixed findings. Some have showed that people do become desensitised to real-life violence. This then raises a question about how serious that is – does being desensitised to real-life violence mean you are likely to become more aggressive and commit acts of violence? Lots of people watch horror films, but it doesn’t seem to make them go out and commit awful acts, although over time their physiological response to the violence probably becomes lessened (as with anything we get ‘used to it’). There are lots of factors that contribute to whether people commit acts of violence, and it could be, that within particular circumstances, a video game could contribute also.

Overall, I think it is really important to acknowledge the risks of violent games (for example, with warnings on the marketing materials) and to think about what children have access to. On the upside, video games in which people play a character that behaves in a prosocial way (prosocial is the opposite of antisocial so it means helpful, kind behaviour) can make players act in more prosocial ways in the real-world. All this tells us that video games can influence people, and that some of this influence may be around sensitising or desensitising them to particular stimuli, however there are bound to be lots of other factors at play too.

It’s a really interesting area to be thinking about, because technology is advancing all the time and the immersive gaming experience is becoming increasingly realistic – so it’s a very timely question! 🙂