Side Effects of Playing War Games

Since time immemorial, there has always been a dichotomy between the idealized image of war, and the actual way in which it is waged. Boys playing war games on a summer day, with wooden swords or plastic guns, would thus be free to point and shoot each other and imagine neither blood nor carnage, but rather a clean and fun test of wits.

Changes in How War Games are Played

• However, as time went on and technology progressed, a new form of fantasy warfare emerged through the video game. At first, in the 1980s and early 1990s, a war game was nothing more than a side-scrolling adventure, with unlimited ammo and cartoon-like effects. War games were still therefore detached from reality in many ways, and their effects on the minds of children and young adults were probably about the same as playing war games always was. But with the advent of 32-bit graphics and three-dimensional first-person shooters, the player could for the first time feel like she was walking through an open field, or into a door with enemy soldiers waiting inside. Since then, the graphics and depth of game play have now reached almost photo-realistic and lifelike proportions, bringing us closer to the day when a matrix-like virtual reality experience is possible.

Effects of Modern War Games

• The problem with all this is that as researchers such as Lt. Col Dave Grossman have pointed out, sustained exposure to lifelike video game violence can begin to break down the psychological controls that otherwise restrain people from violence. What this means is that people who play violent war games are conditioned to be more capable of committing acts of violence against others. This does not mean, as many have worried, that playing war games makes people more likely to commit violence, only that they have reduced barriers to it.

Why This Happens

• Human beings, due to a mix of social upbringing and evolutionary group survival instincts, have a natural aversion to killing other people. Indeed even animals exhibit this behavior, often hurting or wounding competitors of the same species in order to show dominance, but hardly ever killing them. An example of this in relation to warfare is the now famous World War II study that found that only a small percentage of soldiers actually fired their weapon with the explicit intention to kill. Therefore, even in times of great personal danger, very few people are capable of willful killing. In response to this fact, military officials instituted changes to their training regimen, incorporating shooting at lifelike human targets and sophisticated war-game scenarios in order to break down people's natural aversion to killing.

Long Term Consequences

• Disturbingly, Lt. Grossman and other researchers have found that playing war video games also has this effect. As the person gets used to lifelike scenarios and repeatedly killing imaginary targets, he increases his ability to do so in real life. This can be further augmented through participation in outdoor games such as paintball or "air-soft" which often mimic real military training scenarios.

Concluding Thoughts

• Luckily, most people retain their ability to exercise control over their behavior in a way that prevents their violent virtual life from mixing with their normal non-violent role in society. The problem comes when feelings of anger, alienation and depression combine with the conditioning provided by such games. As recent school shootings illustrate, that combination can be deadly.