AfterTek

Virtual rev-heads take their need for speed from the lounge room and apply it out onto the roads, creating a generation of aggressive, risky drivers, according to German research. Even after playing just one virtual racing game men took greater risks in critical traffic situations on a computer simulator, they found.

Extending prior findings on how aggressive virtual-shooter games increase aggression-related thoughts, feelings and behaviours, researchers at Munich’s Ludwig-Maximilians University and the Allianz Center for Technology found that of 198 men and women, those who play more virtual car racing games were more likely to report that they drive aggressively and get in accidents. Less frequent virtual racing was associated with more cautious driving.

The findings appear in the March issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, which is published by the American Psychological Association. “Our results pose the question whether playing racing games leads to accidents in real-life road traffic,” according to the researchers. “Playing racing games could provoke unsafe driving… Practitioners in the field of road traffic safety should bear in mind the possibility that racing games indeed make road traffic less safe, not least because game players are mostly young adults, acknowledged as the highest accident-race group.”

Given that children start playing these games on average at age 10 (based on previous research by co-author Jörg Kubitzki), the researchers are concerned that racing games may instill risk-taking attitudes that lead to unsafe driving when children grow up and get behind the wheel.