Violent video games

Jen Vuk (Why Fortnite isn’t all bad for kids, Jan 5) would have us believe that prolonged exposure by children to violent video games is beneficial. I don’t buy it.

The only evidence offered by Vuk is personal anecdote (not scientifically valid) and a passing reference to ‘‘a 2018 research paper’’.

Some sleuthing on the internet reveals that Vuk (a Melbourne marketing manager) has apparently quoted from an article on a website called Science Daily. Science Daily claims that ‘‘researchers at the University of York have found no evidence to support the theory that video games make players more violent’’.

However, following the link to the abstract of the paper by Zendle, Kudenko and Cairns reveals that Science Daily appears to have misled us. Its paper merely claims that increasing realism in video games does not ‘‘increase the activation of aggressive concepts’’.

Further Googling brings up a 2018 paper in Computers in Human Behaviour by Tobias Greitemeyer, supported by the Austrian Science Fund, that concludes not only that violent video game exposure is associated with aggressive outcomes, but also that it affects the player’s social behaviour outside the virtual world.

I’m very happy to be corrected if I’m wrong in anything I’ve said, but my tentative conclusion here is that Vuk and your paper have provided dangerously wrong information in this instance.

John McDermott, Lower Hutt