The Effects of Technological Advancement.pdf

ORIGINAL ARTICLE The Effects of Technological Advancement and Violent Content in Video Games on Players’ Feelings of Presence, Involvement, Physiological Arousal, and Aggression James D. Ivory1 Sriram Kalyanaraman2 1 Department of Communication, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061 2 School of Journalism andMass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 The possible impact of technological advancement on video games’ effects—particularly in the case of violent games—has often been discussed but has not been thoroughly explored by empirical research. The present investigation employed a 2 3 2 between- subjects factorial experiment to examine the interplay of technological advancement and violence by exposing participants (N = 120) to either a newer or older version of a violent or nonviolent game and measuring these factors’ effects on players’ sense of presence, involvement, physiological arousal (measured by skin conductance), self- reported arousal, and affective and cognitive aggression. The results indicate that tech- nological advancement increased participants’ sense of presence, involvement, and physiological and self-reported arousal. Neither advancement nor violence had statisti- cally significant effects on accessibility of players’ aggressive thoughts, but there is some tentative evidence that violent game content increased players’ state hostility. Theoreti- cal and practical implications of findings are discussed, and recommendations are made for future research. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00356.x Concern about the possible negative effects of violent video games has been accom- panied by a boom in research, as is evident from meta-analyses identifying dozens of existing research reports, published over a period of more than 20 years, investigat- ing the relationship between video games and aggression (Anderson, 2004; Anderson Bushman, 2001; Sherry, 2001). Some scholars cla