MONDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- Playing violent video games raises blood pressure in young men and is associated with a more permissive attitude towards violence and alcohol and marijuana use, according to a study published in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Sonya S. Brady, Ph.D., and Karen A. Matthews, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, randomly assigned 100 male undergraduates aged 18 to 21 years from an urban university campus to play either The Simpsons: Hit and Run, (low-violence game) or Grand Theft Auto III (high-violence game). The sample included men with varying lifetime exposure to violence within the home and the community.
Compared with the men in the The Simpsons: Hit and Run group, the men who played Grand Theft Auto III had greater increases in diastolic blood pressure from baseline rest period to game play. In this group, those who experienced greater exposure to violence in the home and community also exhibited elevated systolic blood pressure relative to their peers who played the low-violence game. The Grand Theft Auto III group also exhibited greater negative affect, more uncooperative behavior and were more permissive toward alcohol and marijuana use.
"Although youth growing up in violent homes and communities may become more physiologically aroused by media violence exposure, all youth appear to be at risk for potentially negative outcomes," the authors conclude.
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