Video games with smoking and drinking have a negative effect on teens, finds new study

Playing video games that feature alcohol and tobacco influences teens to take part in drinking and smoking, according to a new UK study.

Carried out by researchers from the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies at the University of Nottingham, the study is the first to look at the alcohol and tobacco content of best-selling video games and the effect they have on drinking and smoking behaviour.

To carry out their study the team looked at content of 32 of the UK’s best-selling video games of 2012/2013.

The team included games from the genres of stealth, action adventure, open world, shooter and survival/horror because the characters look and behave like real people.

Forty-four percent of the games included were found to contain alcohol or smoking references or imagery.

Out of the top five most popular games, “Grand Theft Auto V VI” contained the highest level of alcohol and smoking content using fictitious brands only. The other top games containing alcohol and tobacco were “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” and “Assassin’s Creed III.”

The team then surveyed 1,094 UK adolescents aged 11-17, asking whether they had played any of the games that had been identified as containing either tobacco or alcohol imagery and whether they drank or smoked themselves.

The results showed that teenagers who had played at least one game featuring alcohol and tobacco references were twice as likely to have tried smoking or drinking themselves, leading the researchers to believe that the video games had a direct effect on the behavior of the teens.

“While 80% of children aged 10-15 play packaged or online video games with an age rating higher than their age, more than half of British parents are unaware of the harmful content this exposes them to,” commented psychologist Dr. Joanne Cranwell from the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies.

The team now believes the age restriction system on buying video games is not working, and that this type of content in games should be reported by the Pan-European Games Information (PEGI) system, which informs the Video Standards Council age ratings. Dr. Cranwell added that incentives could help encourage game developers to also take responsibility and reduce this type of content in their games.