Children and adolescents today spend most of their time going to school and consuming

media. On average, children spend about forty hours per week watching television and films,
listening to music, playing video games, and spending time online. With such high levels of
exposure to violent content in games, it is imperative to understand the impact that such
content can have on children.

Virtual reality (VR) is a powerful technology that promises to change our lives unlike any
other. By artificially stimulating our senses, our bodies become tricked into accepting another
version of reality. VR is like a waking dream that could take place in a magical cartoon-like
world, or could transport us to another part of the Earth or universe. It is the next step along a
path that includes many familiar media, from paintings to movies to video games.

Virtual healing Stanford and other research labs are proving that VR has implications beyond
just entertainment. Recent studies have demonstrated that VR can have medical and
psychological effects. It has been shown, for example, to effectively improve physical
rehabilitation after a stroke or injury, reduce phantom limb pain, treat anxiety and specific
phobias, and improve social cognition training for individuals with autism. Jeremy Bailenson,
an associate professor and the founding director of the Stanford lab I visited, is fascinated by
VR’s potential to improve society by enhancing empathy and encouraging more considerate
behaviours. “Anything is possible in VR. You can become 70 years old, a different race, or a
different gender, and have to walk a mile in that person’s shoes and experience
discrimination against that person,” Bailenson says. “I see my job as using VR to teach
people how to like each other, take each other’s perspective, learn about other cultures and
learn about the environment.” In an experiment conducted by Bailenson and his colleagues
last year, participants who experienced a colour blind simulation using VR dedicated
significantly more time to volunteer work that benefited the colour blind community than
participants who merely imagined what it was like to be colour blind.1

Deep feeling Though the graphics were impressive, I struggled to see how the immersive
documentary would change my attitude or behaviour toward the environment. Preliminary
results of a study that featured this documentary have found that participants who watched

1
https://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2014/bbc-vr-better-person.pdf
the immersive version felt more empathy towards the environment than those who watched a
traditional 2D documentary, but my mind kept drifting back to the excitement of flying like
superwoman and I didn’t think about the ocean again

RESEARCH FINDINGS2

 All children in this study were very engaged with the VR experience and all asked to
play for longer. Many of the children immediately asked their parents to buy the VR
equipment. Parents watching their children play also mentioned how engaged their
children were. Children used VR in very social ways, i.e. simultaneously talking with
a friend “outside” the experience, and “overreacting” to situations to describe or
involve others in the VR experience.
 Children used VR in very social ways, i.e. simultaneously talking with a friend
“outside” the experience, and “overreacting” to situations to describe or involve
others in the VR experience. Children’s engagement was multi-sensory (taste, touch,
verbal etc). They engaged with VR content by using all of their body.
 Children enjoyed breaking rules and doing things they could not do in the real world,
for example, going on a roller-coaster (they are usually too short to go on the real
thing), and setting things on fire.

VR takes even cartoonish, unrealistic violence and makes it real enough, on a seemingly
subconcious level, to upset even previously callous digital death-dealers. "It's more intense,
you can look away from it but you can't escape it. You will feel it, like everything in VR, you
will feel everything much more intensely,” said Piers Jackson, whose company Guerrilla
Games is developing Rigs, a first-person multiplayer shooter for PlayStation VR.3

Positive and negative aspects of 3-D gaming Silverman, Johns, Weaver, and Mosley (2007)
envisage a world where many games will in the future be used therapeutically, to assist
people in understanding the problems that others face, and to overcome health problems,
child rearing difficulties and interpersonal traumas. Against this positive view, however, there
are persistent controversies among psychologists about possible negative effects in children
and adolescents of playing video games, an issue which becomes especially sensitive when
realistic VE-based games are involved (Anderson, 2004). Calvert and Tan (1994) found that

2
http://digilitey.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/CVR-Final-PDF-reduced-size.pdf
3
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/virtual-reality-death-violence
actively playing a violent 3-D game (compared with just passively watching as another
participant played) produced a higher heart rate, and provoked more aggressive thoughts on a
post-test questionnaire.

Carnagey, Anderson, and Bushman (2007) recently found that violent video gaming had a
desensitising effect (reducing heart rate and GSR responses) when participants were
subsequently shown images of real life violence4. The realism of VE-based games
(“Manhunt” is a prime example), is created by the addition of three-dimensionality in the
context of realistic urban environments in which, to succeed, a participant has to commit
virtual murders at a rapid rate, often using gruesome methods, extra points being scored for
employing especially violent and macabre means of destroying the virtual victims. Clearly,
VEs can be put to both positive and negative use; while the Manhunt game rewards acts of
virtual violence and destruction, the police force in Manchester, UK, has used a virtual
environment with school pupils to teach them to identify areas within the city that are most
safe and most dangerous. A further positive application might be the use in the future of VEs
to depict scenes which clinically hyper aggressive patients find violence-provoking, and use
these for progressive desensitisation as one element in anger management programmes
(Barnett, 2009). Anderson et al., (2006) report studies using video games varying in their
levels of virtual violence to examine brain changes, recorded in an fMRI (functional magnetic
resonance imaging) scanner, in some of the first studies that attempt to identify the
underlying brain changes produced by the playing of violent realistic games. Children who
are institutionalised for crimes of violence are particularly affected by violent game playing,
and typically identify with the most violent characters depicted. Future identification of brain
changes triggered by both real and virtual violent experience could enable psychologists to
provide information-based advice about the advisability of allowing games to be sold openly.
kind of behaviors the players will assume as a result of their exposure to the games5.
Evidence points to an increase in aggressive behaviors both in the short run and in the long
run. Experimental studies have shown that playing violent games directly causes players to
behave more aggressively. These experimental studies typically expose participants to violent
games for relatively short amounts of time (usually about fifteen to thirty minutes) before

4
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1131318.pdf
5
See Judith A. Vessey & Joanne E. Lee, Violent Video Games Affecting Our Children,26 PEDIATRIC NURSING 607, 607
(2000) ("There has been concern about the effect of video games on children’s behavior almost since their inception."). as
cited in A Review of the Effects of Violent Video Games on Children and Adolescents by Jodi L. Whitaker and Brad J.
Bushman
measuring aggression. Aggression typically is measured by allowing participants to blast a
confederate (an actor) with loud noise through headphones. People who play violent video
games give longer and louder noise blasts to their opponents than those who play nonviolent
video games. Longitudinal studies reveal other, real-life examples of increased aggression,
including higher numbers of arguments with teachers and more involvement in physical
fights6. In addition to increasing aggressive behaviors, playing violent video games can also
increase aggressive thoughts. After playing a violent game, people list more aggressive
thoughts and interpret ambiguous stories in a more hostile manner. In fact, exposure to
violent video games may lead the player to interpret many different situations in a more
aggressive way an effect known as the hostile attribution bias. Playing violent video games
also can increase aggressive feelings in players. After playing a violent game, people report
feeling more anxious and hostile. Empirical evidence also indicates that playing violent video
games can lead to the development of a more hostile and aggressive personality.

Characteristics of Violent Video Games Some of the characteristics of violent games may
cause children to pay more attention to the game and/or to be affected more by the content7.
Violent games tend to be more action-oriented and thus are more likely to include scene
changes, audio level variability, and a great amount of movement; these form characteristics
are known to increase children’s attention. Children also may be more affected if the violence
portrayed is seen as justified, if the violence is glamorized, if the game fosters identification
with aggressive characters, or if the game is perceived as more realistic.

Virtual reality groping banned at Tokyo Game Show 8

Virtual reality is putting in an appearance at the Tokyo Game Show 2016 as developers try to
get us excited enough to purchase a VR headset in order to play their VR games. One of

6
Douglas A. Gentile, Paul J. Lynch, Jennifer Ruh Linder & David A. Walsh, The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits on
Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance, 27 J. ADOLESCENCE 5, 18 (2004)as cited in A Review
of the Effects of Violent Video Games on Children and Adolescents by Jodi L. Whitaker and Brad J. Bushman

7
See L. Rowell Huesmann & Laramie D. Taylor, The Role of Media Violence in Violent Behavior, 27 ANN. REV. PUB.
HEALTH 393, 403 (2006) ("as cited in A Review of the Effects of Violent Video Games on Children and
Adolescents by Jodi L. Whitaker and Brad J. Bushman

8
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2016/09/virtual-reality-boob-groping-banned-at-tokyo-
game-show.html
those Japanese developers is M2 Co. Ltd, who have a piece of 3D modeling and animation
software called E-mote. The software lets you create 3D characters that have the look of 2D
illustrations… and then interact with them. To demonstrate the software and interaction at
TGS, M2 took along a real-life mannequin, dressed it up like a character created in E-Mote,
and placed some sensors on the body, more specifically the breasts. Then, while wearing a
VR headset, TGS visitors could touch the mannequin and have the animated 3D character
react.

Yes, E-mote does have a lot of potential, especially for anyone wanting to create a virtual
reality experience where you grope girls (or boys). And it has got M2 into trouble on the
show floor. The TGS organizers have banned M2 from allowing the mannequin to be
fondled, removing the real-touch feedback from the experience.

Murder in virtual reality should be illegal9

But this new form of entertainment is dangerous. The impact of immersive virtual violence
must be questioned, studied, and controlled. Before it becomes possible to realistically
simulate the experience of killing someone, murder in VR should be made illegal.

This is not the argument of a killjoy. As someone who has worked in film and television for
almost 20 years, I am acutely aware that the craft of filmmaking is all about maximising the
impact on the audience. Directors ask actors to change the intonation of a single word while
editors sweat over a film cut down to fractions of a second, all in pursuit of the right mood
and atmosphere.

So I understand the appeal of VR, and its potential to make a story all the more real for the
viewer. But we must examine that temptation in light of the fact that both cinema and gaming
thrive on stories of conflict and resolution. Murder and violence are a mainstay of our drama,
while single-person shooters are one of the most popular segments of the games industry.

Students who played violent games for just 20 minutes a day were more aggressive and less
empathetic than those who didn’t.

The effects of all this gore are not clear-cut. Crime rates in the United States have fallen even
as Hollywood films have become bloodier and violent video games have grown in popularity.

9
https://aeon.co/ideas/murder-in-virtual-reality-should-be-illegal
 Some research suggests that shooter games can be soothing, while other studies indicate they
might be a causal risk factor in violent behaviour. (Perhaps, as for Frank Underwood in the
Netflix series House of Cards, it’s possible for video games to be both those things.) Students
who played violent games for just 20 minutes a day, three days in a row, were more
aggressive and less empathetic than those who didn’t, according to research by the
psychologist Brad Bushman at Ohio State University and his team. The repeated actions,
interactivity, assuming the position of the aggressor, and the lack of negative consequences
for violence are all aspects of the gaming experience that amplify aggressive behaviour,
according to research by the psychologists Craig Anderson at Iowa State University and
Wayne Warburton at Macquarie University in Sydney. Mass shooters including Aaron
Alexis, Adam Lanza, and Anders Breivik were all obsessive gamers.

Virtual reality has much to offer - as long as people don’t confuse the simulation with real
life

HOW IT CAN BE REGULATED

 Paediatricians and parents should think about the “media diet” of children. What children
watch on screens is just as important — if not more important — than how much time they
spend in front of screens.
 Parents need to be mindful of what their children see and what games they play. To the extent
that it’s possible, parents should try to watch and play with their children. With older
children, especially those with computers and smart phones, it’s important to talk about what
they are seeing and doing.
 Parents need to be mindful of their own media habits. They should not only set a good
example, but also be careful of what they watch when their children are nearby.
 Parents need to understand that children, especially young children, can’t always distinguish
between fantasy and reality. “It’s just a movie” may not do the trick. Children under 6
shouldn’t be exposed to virtual violence at all.
 “First person shooter” games, in which killing is the central theme and the goal, are not
appropriate for children of any age.
 Federal, state, and local legislators should work to provide parents and caregivers more, and
more reliable, information about how much violence is in all different kinds of media
 The entertainment industry (and news industry) should be more responsible about how it
portrays violence. It should limit gratuitous violence and glamorization of violence, and when
violence is portrayed, the pain and loss suffered should be portrayed as well.

CONCLUSION
Video games and accompanying online content offer much in the way of excitement and
entertainment for children and adolescents, and indeed many positive experiences can be
derived from playing the games. However, parents should be aware of the dangers inherent in
playing violent video games, and should monitor their youth’s game playing accordingly.
This paper presented an experiment that compared how participants responded to playing a
commercial violent horror game in Virtual Reality (VR) and on TV. Game ratings bodies do
not rate VR and traditional flat screen content differently, despite research showing that
bespoke research experiences in VR can have strong and profound effects on emotion,
cognition and behaviour. Our results show commercial VR products also produce
meaningfully different experiences than on TV: participants reported significantly higher
presence and body ownership, and that the violence received and enacted by them felt more
real and personally involving in VR. Based on the results, we argue that VR games may need
additional content descriptors, and discuss how to improve game ratings, to inform the public
of the potentially unexpected realism of experiences, or to protect them from being exposed
to unwanted or potentially harmful content.