Gentile documents negative effects too, “which makes sense when one considers that most of the effects reported are learning effects at the core,” he writes.
He cites the most comprehensive meta-analysis conducted to date—one led by his colleague and ISU Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson—which included 136 papers detailing 381 independent tests of association conducted on 130,296 research participants. It found that violent game play led to significant increases in desensitization, physiological arousal, aggressive cognition, and aggressive behavior. It also decreased pro-social behavior.
“The evidence that playing video games induces criminal or serious physical violence is much weaker than the evidence that games increase the types of aggression that happen every day in school hallways,” Gentile writes.