Abstract:

Our analyses focussed on the question of the link between an extensive use of violence-oriented computer games and the actual use of violence among adolescents. The tools applied and examined were, on the one hand, the Aristotelian classification of the lack of self-control and, on the other hand, Fritzs thesis concerning the competence to regulate violence in dealing with computers. The results from this both theoretical and empirical analysis are quite clear. although the extensive use of violence-oriented computer games may in any case be described as uncontrolled, in the Aristotelian sense, it can, for the majority of the users, clearly not be defined as a lack of restraint with regard to violence because it is restricted to the virtual world. However, that minority of adolescents who make extensive use of violence-oriented computer games and whose thinking and acting shows great affinity to violence, may well be described as unbridled. The loss of control over violent actions among this group of the unbridled has-thus one of our central findings reached alarming proportions and a frightening quality.