Violent racing games’ negative impact on teens
Recent studies revealed that racing games are often influencing the young people to act like the characters in the games they play. In this way, many teens want to become “fast and furious” because video games like the GTA (Grand Theft Auto) and Carmageddon are having a negative impact on them, especially due to the fact that the rules of the game are to drive at high speed and sometimes, even run down pedestrians to gain more points or extra fuel.
Kathleen Beullens from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium was the leader of this research and the reason why she decided to do this study was to see if the aggressive attitude from the games, where the drivers are forced to violate the traffic laws and commit crimes, can be seen in the real life too.
Even if most of the studies start with data and research and end with a result of the analysis, Kathleen says that after the study was completed, the result is “maybe”, that is some factors can determine if the racing games influence teens or not.
As for the technical details, the study was made in 2008, on about two thousand young men and women, who were between 16 and 17 years. The research consisted in responding to a questionnaire, where the teens were asked how often they use to play this kind of games. After two years, Kathleen asked some of the participants, which have taken the driver’s license, if they feel like acting just like in the video games, taking risks and breaking the rules.
The survey reveals that it truly exists a connection between the racing video games and the dangerously driving in the real life, because the premature exposure of the teens between 16 and 17 years old can influence the attitude of the future driver.
