Watching violent TV and playing violent video games appears to temporarily affect kids’ thoughts and feelings, increasing the likelihood that they’ll behave aggressively, according to a review of scientific literature on the topic.

“Parents can help limit the impact of violence by helping children make sense of what they are seeing,” study author Dr. Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis told AMN Health.

However, she cautioned that children are more likely to be influenced by media if they are “vulnerable” in some way, such as if they see instances of domestic violence at home.

It’s also important to not blame the media for every violent act, Hamilton-Giachritsis added.

“If we over-estimate (media’s effect on kids), we run the risk of undervaluing the role of other factors - such as violence in the home, poverty, etc. - in the development of violent behavior,” she said.

To investigate how media can influence young children, Hamilton-Giachritsis and her colleague Kevin Browne, both from the University of Birmingham in the UK, reviewed 6 studies from North America that examined how children react to media violence. Their analysis, reported in The Lancet, included research that looked at both passive media, such as TV, and interactive media like video and computer games.

Hamilton-Giachritsis and Browne found that watching media violence appeared to increase younger children’s risk of acting aggressively, but only in the short-term. The trend was particularly noticeable in boys, Hamilton-Giachritsis noted.

She explained that there is less evidence concerning the effect of media on teenagers, and whether watching violence can have long-term effects on children of all ages.

It’s also unclear whether media violence has any influence on kids’ tendency to commit crimes, Hamilton-Giachritsis noted. One study showed that one in four young offenders reported attempting to imitate a crime they had seen in film or TV, but it’s impossible to say whether the media violence caused those crimes, she said.

However, she noted that children are likely to mimic violence shown by the “hero”, when the violence is arguably justified.

Hamilton-Giachritsis added that parents should try to monitor what kids watch, and be aware of less obvious forms of violence, such as DVDs, videos and computer games.

SOURCE: The Lancet, February 19, 2005.