Gaming Culture Rises the Level of Verbal Abuse
Today, the gaming industry is one of the most popular industries in the world. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the 2018 total video game sales in America alone exceeded $43.3 billion, a record breaking year for the industry. The ESA report further states that over 164 million adults in America - spanning every age, gender and ethnicity- play video games. Other sources report something similar, stating that worldwide gamers number at slightly above 1.5 billion. Those numbers are much higher when you consider other gaming devices, such as phones, tablets, and personal computers. Video games are currently, and increasingly becoming an integral part of different cultures worldwide.
Although gaming does have benefits, a great number of publications, however, have pointed out that there is a dark side to this activity. Since their inception, video games have served as a source of moral panic and a convenient scapegoat for acts of spectacular violence. A vivid example of this would be the Columbine High School massacre of 1999. Often, politicians have placed the blame on video games, for example US president Donald Trump not too long ago stated in his press conference that in order to stop mass shootings, the glorification of violence in video games needs to stop first. The growing popularity of games, its meteoric rise in sales and its presumed harmful impact on behavior are some of the reasons why video games have become hot topic for researchers of psychology. However, although the academic interest in video games has increased, research has yielded mixed results regarding its harmful impact on individuals behavior.
Firstly, some aspects of gaming culture can get out of hand such as verbal abuse when (online) play gets competitive and creates possible emotional element anger. Experimental studies in the United States and Japan have shown that playing violent video games causes a short-term increase in aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Cross-sectional studies show positive correlations between habitual violent video game play and both mild and severe forms of physical aggression. A significant number of participants of massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs) reported being victimised as well as engaging in cyberbullying. Meta-analyses revealed, not only significant effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, affect and cognition, but also on prosocial behavior.
Regarding verbal abuse, it tends to be three times as worse if the target happens to be female. However, although other studies found a significant effect for action and first-person shooter games on physical aggression, no significant association between these types of games and verbal aggression has been found. Moreover, when (violent) games involve a certain level of cooperation the subsequent effects on behavior tend to be lessened.
The main reason why a great number of players engage in toxic behaviors when playing online, is due to the sheer number of players combined with competition, anonymity and freedom from consequence. One theory that can describe anger and abuse during online play is the Deindividuation theory. Postmes and Spears in their meta-analyses describe Deindividuation as “a mental state where people’s identity fades into the background of their thoughts so much that they become much more susceptible to cues from the environment and people around them as to how to behave.” Postmes and Spears further explain that, the attention is drawn out and away from the self, which causes the individual to be unconscious of his behavior. As a result, the individual loses his ability to self-monitor and plan behavior. They also illustrated that when accountability is reduced, more anti-normative behavior was displayed, especially when the individual is in a group. Despite men’s greater tendency toward aggression, this study revealed no gender differences. Men and women had an equal propensity to transgress in the face of deindividuating settings. Furthermore, Postmes and Spears showed that deindividuated individuals behaved more in accord with the situational norm; increased responsiveness to the situation; using environmental cues for behavioral direction.
To conclude, video games have been linked to all kinds of anti-social behaviors. Indeed, the evidence shows that people can change under certain in-game conditions eg. competition. On the other hand, there are great benefits of gaming. Whenever there are two camps strongly opposing one another, the answer should lie somewhere in the middle. Disregarding the bias of many researchers against games, it seems that context plays a very strong role in which type of behavior video games elicit. Thus, understanding the context can lead to the creation of effective interventions to eliminate or at least reduce harmful behaviors of the players. Of course, implementing these interventions may cause a lot of uproar and backlash from the player.
