Impact of media literacy education on aggression and attitudes towards violence in adolescents’ users of violent computer games in qom

Background: Children are subject to more impacts by media violence due to their less mature cognitive development and experiences compared to adults. As a method to immunize individuals against media’s impacts, media literacy is able to develop critical thinking in its audience. The present study, consequently, intends to determine efficiency of media literacy learning in lowering violent behaviors evinced by players of violent video games. Materials and methods: In this study, a number of 100 adolescent violent video gamers who referred to Qom game nets were selected by random sampling method and divided into two groups: intervention and control. They were asked to fill in questionnaires on their demographical information, Ahvaz Aggression Inventory, and Attitudes Towards Violence. After arrangement of courses required for media literacy acquisition, educational intervention was undertaken in three sessions as group discussions and lectures for intervention group. To analyze the data, parametric tests such as independent T, paired T, and chi-square were used employing SPSS software V20. Findings: Results of independent T-Test showed that neither groups had significant differences in their average aggressiveness and attitude to violence scores in pre-intervention phase. After termination of intervention phase in one month, however, results showed that aggressiveness cases and positive attitudes to violence were diminished in intervention group as to control group (P=0.0001): Conclusions: Acquisition of media literacy can reduce effects of video games on aggressiveness level of young players. This is essential to lodge basics of media literacy in textbooks and produce preventive programs in this regard.