New research suggests hours of exposure to violent media such as video games can make children react in more hostile and violent ways compared to kids who don't spend lots of time controller-in-hand, sparking new debate about gaming and children.

Ever since Columbine, in which two students went on a deadly rampage at their high school, television, movies, and video games have been a popular target for senseless acts of violence. After the shooting, the media pushed the narrative that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's inclinations for violent video games, not to mention metal music and goth subculture, were partly to blame for the horrific incident.

Nearly 15 years later, that hasn't discouraged teens from playing video games, especially of the violent ilk. Approximately 90% of children in the U.S. play video games, and more than 90% of those games involve mature content that often includes violence. The connection between violent media and aggression has also spawned a body of research that has gone back and forth on the issue.

Worries about how violence in virtual reality might play out in real life have led legislators to propose everything from taxing violent video games to proposing age restrictions on who can buy them. The inconsistent state of the literature was enough to prompt President Obama in 2013 to call for more research into how violent video games may be influencing kids who use them. While there are studies that don't show a strong influence between violent media and acts of violence, an ever growing body of research does actually support that violent games can make kids act more aggressively in their real-world relationships.

In the latest work to address the question, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, scientists led by Craig Anderson, director of the center for the study of violence at Iowa State University, found hints that violent video games may set kids up to react in more hostile and violent ways.

READ MORE: Little By Little, Violent Video Games Make Us More Aggressive