We know you’re tired of seeing the same question over and over. This time, we will shed light on whether video games cause violence in children in the clearest way possible.
Previously, the Blue Whale game remained on the agenda for a long time, and it was associated with the suicide attempts of many children. It was argued that the game in question took advantage of the psychological states and data of children and dragged them to this bad end. Now we have the Yandere Simulator, which parents must weigh completely separate from the obscure Blue Whale.
First of all, what is this Yandere Simulator?
In Yandere Simulator, we play a girl who cannot open up to the boy she loves, but whose blood boils when each person approaches that boy. It is noticed while playing the game that this character is not in a mentally stable condition.
There are 10 girls described as ‘opponents’ in the game. These are people close to the boy we love, and the other girl doesn’t show up until we separate one from the boy we love within a week. So we’re dealing with opponents one by one.
As for the gameplay:
Yandere Simulator has a gameplay that we are familiar with from the Hitman series. When we go to school, we can control our character as if we were in an open world game, sometimes we can do good things to people by talking to them, and sometimes we can ask them for something based on our reputation and set traps for them.
We go to school each day of the week and until the end of the day we do certain tasks that change according to the way we play.
These tasks change according to what we want to do to our opponent. The feature that causes the parents to be warned by taking the game up to the news channels is also revealed here.
In this game, all means are fair (in a way) for the sake of purpose.
We’ll touch on what we mean by the phrase in parentheses, but first, let’s look at how we eliminated competitors. A single method is not presented here, on the contrary, many possibilities are given to the player, allowing the player to create his own path.
For example, we need to eliminate a girl. There are many ways to go about this. You can make a deal with the mafia and have him kidnapped, you can eliminate him with cutting tools, you can make him stay under a big object by making it look like an accident or cause him to get shocked due to electric leakage. Apart from that, you can leave something in her bag that she shouldn’t bring to school and have her expelled from school.
On the other hand, it’s a fact that you don’t have to do these things:
As we said, everything is fair in this game. But there is no such thing as you will necessarily follow the deadly paths. For example, if your opponent has a problem and you save him from that problem, he can become a good enough friend, so you can ask him to stay away from the boy you love.
Thus, that person will both get out of the way and become a close friend that can be useful in the future.
But is the end we reached by turning things into a bloodbath the same as the end we reached by solving matters in more complex ways and without causing death?
Of course not. This game offers you every opportunity to get rid of your opponent, but this does not mean that you are not responsible for your actions.
As a result, the ending where you kill everyone you come across and the end where you try different ways are quite different from each other. Therefore, it is necessary to think strategically and logically during the game.
Now let’s come to the psychological aspect of children.
Generally speaking, some of the many studies focusing on the question of whether games cause aggression have shown that even short-term aggression occurs in adults.
A fine but sharp line must be drawn here. Studies suggest that there is a clear link between violent video games and ‘aggressive behavior’. But by the same token, published working papers also state that it is scientifically inconsistent to say that video games cause violence.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), especially children under the age of 6 should not be exposed to any form of violent media content.
The reason for this is that these children do not yet know the difference between fiction and the real world, and therefore they can accept violence as it is.
When we look at it in general, saying “video games cause violence”, let alone reporters; It’s a pretty long step that even experts don’t take:
A 2010 study found that video games cause violence in children, but only for children who experience conditions such as neuroticism.
A study published in 2019 in the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science shows that video games do not cause teens to be aggressive or violent.
According to the psychosocial development theory of psychologist Erik Erikson, children between the ages of 11-19 are in the phase of gaining their identity and experiencing role confusion.
For this reason, it is not recommended for people in this age range who are already dealing with personality complexes to stay alone with violent content. But it is not because they will turn to violence; shows that such content generally affects their mood negatively.
According to certain studies, the main danger covers individuals who fall behind this stage, that is, individuals younger than 10 (especially 6) years old. The reason for this is that, as we have said before, they have difficulty in distinguishing between fact and fiction, and in this context, it is shown that a false image can be formed in their minds more easily than other age groups.
When you look at it, Yandere Simulator is a game set in high school. But the majority of the audience of the game is children.
This is the situation that poses the real danger. These children, who have not gone to high school, or who have not even reached the stage of establishing their identity according to Erikson’s theory, may be exposed to Yandere Simulator and create a high school image in their minds based on it.
Based on all these studies, we can liken this situation to high school/youth dramas that show high school as a very different place than we know. As we know, these offer an environment outside the reality, but children who are unaware of what high school is, may think it real and draw their expectations in that direction.
There is a little bit of “cherry picking” in the event that created the confusion.
There are studies showing that people who are prone to violence play more video games. When such studies are presented to the public without considering other factors, perceptions such as “Video games lead to violence” are formed.
Of course, these studies are not wrong. But these are studies that have their own limitations. They aim to present certain evidence within certain frameworks, and the problem is that the media channels only take these researches and reach a definitive and general judgment.
It is necessary to understand the difference between:
Just as it is appropriate for a 10-year-old to watch an adult movie, it is just as appropriate for high school children to be exposed to heavy violence. Being alone with these contents can create problems for the future during these periods when the character is shaped. But it is not that easy to go and say “if the child plays these games, he will turn to violence”.
At this point, experts get involved; It includes many social factors such as the way the child is brought up, the environment of friends, psychological disorders, if any, the environment and the treatment he receives. However, we see that these factors are ignored in most studies that come to the conclusion that “violent games encourage violence”.
One of the examples of research that is not wrong, but can reach general conclusions if its limits are not taken into account:
In the research, there is a group with few members and only Chinese students, only violent games are included, excluding different content such as internet content, and the results are taken from the participants themselves, that is, the students.
- Sources: Healthline, Verywell Family, The Royal Society, Frontiers in Psychology
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