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Call of Violence

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In the United States, Ninety percent of adolescents between the ages of eight and sixteen play some sort of video game. They spend thirteen hours a week playing these games. According to CNN Health, if said adolescents are male that number is more than likely higher(Harding). The main question, however, is does the violence in these video games cause violent behaviours? Do prolonged hours to military like games cause adolescent youth to become and angry? Not at all. There have been many studies done to actually prove that violent video games have no effect on behavior.
Blood, gore, explicit content, use of drugs, intense violence, some might think this describes some drug war in a third world country but these are actual phrases the the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) uses to describe the Grand Theft Auto Series ("Harvard Mental Health Letter" ). In 2008, the Pew Research center stated that ninety-seven percent of youths ages twelve to seventeen played some type of video game, over half of which played video games with violent content. A separate study found that close to half of the video games out there rated by ESRB (See Figure 1 for an example of a rating)were considered violent and close to ninety percent of those games were rated for ten year olds and above ("Harvard Mental Health Letter" ). Given how popular these games are its no wonder that mental health experts find themselves being asked by parents what effect do these games have on their children.

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