Products toymaker Lego are increasingly violent to try to attract the attention of children in the digital age, says a New Zealand study published Monday.
"The Lego company products are no longer as innocent as they used to be (...) Violence of Lego products seems to have gone beyond improving the gameplay," says the study's lead researcher, Christoph Bartneck.
The team from the University of Canterbury says that more and more weapons in the products of the Danish company and are more inspired by themes of war, with the result that children play more brutal way.
The study, published in the online journal PLoS One concludes that eventually Lego toys "cause exponential increases in violence", while acknowledging that this is a general market trend entertainment for children.
Meanwhile a spokesman for the company, Troy Taylor, said its products include all kinds of activities such as construction, fantasy and conflict.
"Like other types of games, the conflict is a natural part of child (...) development always try and use humor whenever possible to reduce the level of conflict," he said.