There's plenty of well-documented evidence that seriously violent video-game based training eventually desensitizes trained adult soldiers to real-life violence in combat.
So really how much of a stretch is it to say that young children with no real concept of right and wrong might be harmed by the same?
I was writing my post as you wrote that one. It's a good point. I could go on about how I think there are some parts of the brain that involve the rational processing of empathy, the natural abhorrance of real violence, that can be manipulated and bypassed. There are interesting studies that say that traditionally in war through WWII, as many as 90% of soldiers could not actually shoot to kill because it was so difficult to do so for people naturally.
Naturally, the military officials didn't get a warm fuzzy feeling about that and the humanity of it but saw it as a bad thing to solve, which they did. They began reviewing training of troops to find out how to overcome the resistance to killing, and found more and more techniques to get soldiers to shoot to kill first as an immediate response that bypassed the rational hesitation, that reduced the rates of not shooting to kill through the Korrean war, Vietnam, and finally got it to near zero in later conflicts. I suspect that while 'effective', these techniques might have some role in causing later psychological issues for soldiers who deal with what they've done. This is not the same issue as 'violent video games', but it is interesting on a related topic.
It's long been a question, how do a few bastards at the top of countries get millions of people to go out and kill and risk their lives for the bastards' benefit? And obviously, there are answers because never in human history has there been much shortage of troops to do so.
But it's a question how to get a society to better ask questions of war and to oppose unnecessary war, as well as to demand justice in economic policies, in fighting poverty globally, and so on. The interview of a Nazi official as he awaited trial after the war is pretty telling about this issue.
We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
“There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”
“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”