Offline Aggression and Online Aggression

In video games, aggression can come in many forms. Yet, most people do not truly know what it’s like for aggression to carry between real life and gaming. I find it easy to make this distinction between fictional and the real life that we live in. Rises in aggression and the lack of distinction between the two worlds that some people exhibit have been a major worry for people all around the world, especially politicians and doctors. The “harmful” video games that have come out in years past are believed to be the root cause of many aggressive actions and mindsets, but they are not the sole reason for which these actions occur. 

Whenever a tragedy linked to video games happens I think of the term offline aggression. This phrase, in my opinion, carries different connotations depending on who hears it. For the average person who isn’t versed in the ways of psychology ultra-violent games seem like the most aggravating method for offline aggression, however, in a study by Elias Aboujadou and Vladan Starcevic (2015), published in Mental Health in the Digital Age: Grave Dangers, Great Promise they state, “the findings of this study suggest that there is little or no difference between the effects of lower level and higher level aggressive media content” (Aboujadou and Starcevic, 2015). This immediately sets a precedent for these researchers as they have established the lack of differentiation in how people are affected by thresholds of violence. This can then feed into the “offline aggression” and how different levels of aggression can be difficult to separate based on severity. 

An act of aggression committed in the real world is what qualifies as “offline aggression,” these acts of aggression can vary in their severity as distinguished in Aboujadou’s study. The catastrophic and monumental acts of “offline aggression” are what people majorly focus on and while the minor upticks in aggressive behavior do matter it’s the major ones that get media focus. The lack of focus on minor acts of aggression committed by gamers is not that bad of a thing as not every type of aggression can be categorized as negative. A categorical organization of these events, actions, and consequences could be quite helpful in helping the general populace understand what truly happens during the aggressive tendencies that people exhibit. 

In the article, Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games be a Force for Good? by Christopher J. Ferguson, aggression is defined even further, “Aggression can thus be distinguished from aggressive play in which two or more consenting individuals are wrestling, playing war, and so forth, but mutually enjoy the activity “ (Ferguson, 2010). Defining aggression in this way narrows down how we can classify “offline aggression” even further as now we can show how actions and their consequences have different effects. Consent is an important component of any action and when engaged in rough play whether or not both, or even all parties consent is an important distinction. Calling simple roughhousing “offline aggression” is not accurate you have to take the bull by the horns in this situation and really focus on the malicious. This rough and tumble mindset that people have toward the aggressive actions taken by others is at times concerning, as many “offline” and “online” aggressions have very harmful consequences to the people around them.

“Online Aggression” is the direct opposite of “Offline Aggression,” while offline aggression focuses on the actions taken in the physical world “Online aggression” on the other hand is actions taken in the virtual world. The “online aggressions” taken are far more prevalent and easier to find as many games are labeled by the ESRB as being violent in some shape or form, even games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater are labeled as being violent even though it is a franchise of sport games and the most violent actions being taken are the results of missteps and falls. These types of violent actions do not truly contribute to the two different forms of aggression as one is not taking some sort of nonconsensual action against another and falls more under the self-harm category, but even then that is not truly accurate as being injured during a sport is something considered more of an accident in general.

In “online aggression” consent is a much trickier matter in online games it can be argued that in Player versus Player combat, all people do have some sort of consent by participating in the games and modes that have these options but at the same point when things like surprise attacks and raids happen upon unsuspecting victims. Single-player games are more often than not story-based games that take the player along some sort of journey. There are sandbox-based games like Minecraft and Terraria where they can be played in either single-player or multiplayer mode, but the core gameplay loop is exactly the same either way. There is a multitude of different genres of games and not every single one is applicable to puzzle games such as Tetris, to the early childhood development games like the Sesame Street games. Many of the genres that children play do not fall into these types and instead have varying levels of violent actions. Actions of “online aggression” in single player games are another tricky affair as the enemies in these immersive worlds do not consent to the aggressive actions taken against them being nonconsensual but they were more often than not purposefully designed for these actions. 

In conclusion, Video games are a major concern for people all around the world, from politicians to parents, but they should not be. While aggression is sometimes a given from the games that people play, the increases in “offline aggression” are often minuscule. Both forms of aggression; “online” and “offline” have similar definitions, an aggressive action taken towards something in a nonconsensual manner. The slippery slope of the multifaceted nature of “online aggression” does muddle the affair just a little bit, but the definition is still easily definable. 

References

Aboujaoude, E., Starcevic, V., Aboujaoude, D. O. C. A. D., & Starcevic, A. P. O. P. V. (Eds.). (2015). Mental health in the digital age: Grave dangers, great promise. Oxford University Press, Incorporated. ProQuest Ebook Central – Reader.

Ferguson, C. J. (2010). Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games be a Force for Good? Review of General Psychology, 14(2), Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games be a Force for Good? – Christopher J. Ferguson, 2010 (rowan.edu).