Adolescent Video Game Playing and Fighting over the Long-term

I present new evidence of the link between video game play and fighting. The General Learning Model predicts that increased aggression from playing violent video games. These predictions are tested using a large longitudinal data set tracking adolescents over time. Consistent with previous research, there is a positive raw correlation between video game playing as an adolescent and aggressive outcomes, in this case fights, even more than a decade later. However, multivariate and instrumental variables estimators do not find a causal relationship. Some implications are: support policy for further interventions is undermined, future research should be more careful about identification threats, and similar methodological approaches can be applied to the effects of other new communication technologies. (JEL D18, L86, O35)