Teen Dating Violence and video games

Teen dating violence is the physical, sexual, or psychological/emotional violence in a dating relationship. Although this problem is called 'teen dating violence' our focus is not just on teenagers but also on tweens (11 and 12 year olds) as well as young adults in their early twenties. This form of relationship violence is distinguished from people who are married or generally have greater experience in dating relationships. This disinction is important because people with relatively little dating experience will have greater difficulty knowing if some aspects of a relationship are "normal" or not.

Although physical or sexual abuse in a dating relationship is fairly easy to define and identify, other forms of abuse like emotional or psychological abuse are not as easy to explain because they depend a great deal on context. This nuanced aspect of dating abuse is one aspect of what makes it difficult to teach young people about what is - and what isn't - healthy or acceptable. However, this contextual component is also what makes our use of video games an ideal solution.

The majority of the video games on JAGga.me focus on teen dating violence and come from an annual video game design contest sponsored by Jennifer Ann's Group, the sponsor of JAGga.me. The Life.Love. Game Design Challenge has been rewarding video game developers for producing video games about teen dating violence since 2008.

Jennifer Ann's Group produces video games as an effective tool to prevent dating violence through awareness, education, and advocacy. To learn more about the history of Jennifer Ann's Group's and its other programs designed to prevent teen dating violence visit JenniferAnn.org.

Research on the Prevention of Teen Dating Violence through Video Games

Video games have been shown to be effective in changing attitudes about abusive behavior, increasing knowledge of dating violence, and increasing awareness of teen dating violence. "'It's like you're actually playing as yourself': Development and Preliminary evaluation of 'Green Acres High', a serious game-based primary intervention to combat adolescent dating violence" from CAVA shares their success in using a video game to change attitudes about abusive behavior in the UK, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium.