Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

[talisman]

As someone who has written a paper on this for my social psych class last term, I know that there is significant evidence that indicates that violent video game play is positively correlated to subsequent physiological arousal, aggressive cognition, aggressive behavior, and negatively correlated to subsequent prosocial behavior. The size of the effect is about r = .15 to r = .19. However, all of these studies have only indicated a short-term effect. No longitudinal studies have been conducted to date.

In television/film violence, several longitudinal studies HAVE been conducted that do reveal a positive correlation between viewing violent media and aggression later in life (and, importantly, a NON-significant correlation between aggression and subsequent violent media viewing). It's expected that similar results would be found in similar studies on violent video games, as games are similar to television, and have the (expected) intensifying factor that is their inherently participatory nature.

Let me see if I can get at some sources for you guys.

edit:

Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: a meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12 (5), 353-359.

Sherry, J. (2001). The effects of violent video games on aggression: a meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 27(3), 409-431.

Both of those are meta-analyses on the topic, essentially pooling together data from many different studies and indicating the short-term effects that DO exist as I mentioned earlier.

(I could upload these too if you don't believe me...)