The Effect Of Computer Games On Delinquent Tendencies And Deviations Of Children And Teenagers Playing The Games

This study investigates the effect of the computer games on behavioral deviance of the game-net boys and its relation to children’s and juveniles’ criminal conducts in rehabilitation centers. To this end, a questionnaire was applied to gather the data. It was a field research and a number of 65 children and juveniles in Esfahan rehabilitation center were required to answer the questionnaire. The questionnaire was also distributed among the same number of non-criminal juveniles who were accustomed to playing computer games, but they were non-criminals. The data were analyzed in SPSS and through logistic regression. The results showed that there is a meaningful relationship between playing the computer games on the part of the teenagers and their tendency toward criminal conducts. In fact playing computer games had a latent effect on the youth and teenagers’ tendency towards the criminal conducts, but this variable, i.e. playing computer games, was not so effective in the juveniles’ criminal conducts. One of the limitations of this study was the fact that the participants of this study at Esfahan rehabilitation center spent less than one hour a day playing computer games. However, a large number of game-net boys play games much more than an hour a day. Therefore, the hypothesis concerning the effect of playing computer games on the juveniles’ criminal conducts cannot be completely rejected unless the limitations of the study are removed and the participants of the study are selected from among those who spend more hours playing harsh computer games.