Grand Theft Auto III is a open world action-adventure video game.

Now we don’t know what to believe.

We published the results of a UK study not too long ago, that showed that playing video games does not have a negative effect on a child’s behaviour.

Now a new study says otherwise, researchers from the U.S. and Italy, have found that playing violent video games not only increases aggression, but also leads to less self-control and more cheating.

GTA III’s violent and sexual content has a source of public concern and controversy.

The study which was done in Italy included 172 Italian high school students, aged 13 to 19.

These teenagers were made to play either a violent video game (Grand Theft Auto III or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) or a nonviolent game (Pinball 3D or MiniGolf 3D) for 35 minutes, after practicing for 10 minutes.

During the experiment, the researchers placed a bowl containing 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of chocolate M&M candy next to the computer. They told the teenagers that they could ‘freely eat them’, but warned them that a high consumption of candy in a short time was unhealthy.

They observed that the teenagers who played the violent games ate more than three times as much candy as did the other teenagers.

“They simply showed less restraint in their eating.” The lead researcher said.

After playing the game, ‘the teenagers were asked to solve a 10-item logic test in which they could win one raffle ticket for each question they got right.’ They were told that the raffle tickets could be used to win prizes.

The teenagers were told how many answers they got correct. They were also allowed to take the appropriate number of raffle tickets out of an envelope containing many tickets, while not being watched.

The researchers knew how many tickets were in the envelope so they could later determine if a player took more than he or she had earned.

Their results showed that the teenagers who played a violent game cheated more than those who played a nonviolent game – more than eight times more in fact. The same set of teenagers were also more aggressive.

Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University adds that:

“When people play violent video games, they show less self-restraint. They eat more, they cheat more,”

 

“It isn’t just about aggression, although that also increases when people play games like Grand Theft Auto.”

 

“We have consistently found in a number of studies that those who play violent games act more aggressively, and this is just more evidence.”

He also observed that:

“One of the major risk factors for anti-social behavior is simply being male,”

 

“But even girls were more likely to eat extra chocolate and to cheat and to act aggressively when they played Grand Theft Auto versus the mini golf or pinball game. They didn’t reach the level of the boys in the study, but their behavior did change.”

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