Effects of playing violent video games on teenagers’ behavior – an experience from Malaysia

Abstract

Introduction: Violent behaviours among teenagers have increased significantly over the years and the mean age of the crime has become younger. Aim and Objective: Our objective was to determine the effects of video games on male teenagers’ behaviors among population in the 24 secondary schools Muar, Johor, Malaysia. Methodology: This was a cross sectional study. Our sample size was 380 and the age of the respondents were between 13-16 years. Data was collected by using 4 sets of questionnaires, which are demographic information (4 items), Multi-Dimensional Emotional Empathy Scale (24 items), Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (29 items) and Self Report Altruism scale (20 items). Results: Our results showed that 78.41% students were violent video gamers. Out of 380 students, 156 students (40.1%) engaged with videogames less than 2 hours per day, 151 teenagers (38.8%) used to play between 2 and 4 hours per day and only 82 teenagers (21.1%) used to play for more than 4 hours per day. About 70% of respondents score was lower than standard in both physical and verbal aggression. Level of altruism is one of the objectives in this research. Discussion: Our results documented that there is a relationship between the video games and the aggressive behaviour even the prosocial behaviour as well. Though the assessment of the aggression, the participant showed more on the anger and hostility attitude. Video games not only related to aggression but also it is related to the diminishing the sense of empathy among teenagers. Conclusion: We concluded in our study that most of the participants showed that they prefer violent video games, most of them are not empathetic and they don’t have altruism attitude.