Causes Of Video Games To Blame For Violence

Americans have been blaming violent forms of entertainment since colonial times. From dime novels to music, to movies to television shows. The most recent medium are video games. Aided by crime-saturated news reports, a lot of people are convinced that video game violence transfers to real-life youth crimes like the school massacres. They think that violent video games make people violent, but that is not the case. Violent people play violent video games. Not everyone who plays video games are violent, but those who already are violent will play them as an outlet for their frustration and rage. If anything, video games keep violent people from going out and killing people in real life because they can vent in the virtual world.

(Procon.org) ¨Over 150 million Americans (71% of teens) play video games.¨ 71 mass shootings have occurred between 1982 and Aug. 2015. seven of them involved teens that are 18 years old or younger¨. (Procon.org) Over the years there have been many mass shootings and a very little amount of those include teens that are 18 and younger. The US Secret Service investigated over 30 incidents of focused school violence between 1974 and 2000. (Procon.org) School violence has been a issue over the years and 37 incidents have happened between 1974 and 2000. ¨A Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman had played shooter games back then. It directly resulted in President Obama requesting Congress to allocate $10 million for research on the effects of violent media.¨ (Video Games, Violence, and Crime) Some people that play violent video games can be just fine playing them and not doing anything that is regrettable. But there are some people out in this world who do something that is so far off the margin that they cause mass shootings. When people play violent video games they can get a little out of hand and cause shootings and some of those are teens. But most teens can realize and know the difference between the virtual violence world and the real

Are violent video games directly correlated to teen violence? This is the burning question many researchers are dedicated to answering. The common form of the question is “Is the increase in violence in games creating killer kids?” The simple answer is no. Instead the opposite has occurred, as games became more violent, the players became calmer. The games create a “safe” outlet for any anger or angst that young people possess. Crime rates in the teen population have lowered and violent teens admit to having little to no interest in violent video games. The games that most people fear are destroying the youth may actually be one of the things helping them grow and become “normal” members in society.

According to the article, "Video Games and Children," by Bernard Cesarone, ever since the 1970?s, parents have been placing their children in front of televisions and allowed them to waste away the hours playing video games (31). As technology and a national surge

Guns. Blood. Death. Three of the most prominent words or actions used to describe video games. Arum Steinbeck wakes up, goes to school, comes home and plays video games. His face glued to the television, he is exposed to gruesome acts of violence. Nonetheless, Arum Steinbeck is not a serial killer. How is this possible? Adolescents who play video games are killers. Dead wrong. 90% of children in the US play video games and 90% of those children play games that involved mature content. Yet, it is possible that not one of these children will grow up to commit serious acts of violence. For most of the children who do end up committing crimes other factors are involved in the equation nonetheless, society tends to blame what they cannot explain. It is easier to blame video games than to accept responsibility for our actions. To put a seranio to words say there is an adolescent drunk driver who gets into a car accident and kills a family. When in court the intoxicated driver will plead not guilty putting the blame on anyone besides themselves. We have fingers to point them. People get in trouble with the law and need a way out, society has made videogame companies a revolving door of allegations that a court of law should find the person rather than the fictional game responsible. In summary, violent video games do not cause real life violence, though some people seems to wish it did.

On more than several occasions, studies have been done to prove whether or not simulated violence is a good experience for the users. The media may think the opposite, that violent video games link to real-life shootings. An example of this could be when Grand Theft Auto V had been released, an event may of been linked under false accusations from those who want the problem to no longer persist. Having these big industries indicted by media causes further concern from parents who do not want their children to be surrounded, much less involved with simulated violence. It is in fact thought that children who play more competitive video games tend to be involved with more aggressive activities at school. All of this just continues to bring up the question as of whether or not we should blame the creators or the media. Violence is everywhere in the world, it should be the adult generation’s job to make sure their children are prepared, and video games might be a cheaper, faster alternative.

Violent video games are blamed for causing violence, aggressive behaviors, crimes, bullying, fighting, and school shootings. The media portrays video games as a tool that influence children and teenagers to commit violent acts. During the Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association case, the United States Supreme Court ruled the rejection of banning video games in California because studies have not proven the violence caused by video games. Statistics have shown the decrease in juvenile crime rates and increase in violent video game sales. Studies conducted by medical professionals have also proven that video games do not cause violence but rather increase moral sensitivity, prosocial behavior, and moral compass for children and teenagers. Video games do not cause violence because there is no evidence that suggests that video games cause violent behavior in children and teenagers.

Media has portrayed violent video games as the root cause for violence and school shootings, but is it really? Violent video games are predominate in the industry of gaming with consumers being primarily children. Furthermore, as the sales of video games increase studies have shown that violence has actually decreased in younger consumers. There are many studies performed on children to truly test these accusations made against video games and violence. Many people believe that playing video games will lead you down a path of anger and evil, but this isn’t the truth at all playing video games doesn’t have to lead you to becoming a villain to

Are video games the modern day scapegoat for violent behavior among youths? Christopher Ferguson states that video games have become the newest in a long line of scapegoats, “explanations rely on weak social science… In past centuries, a variety of art forms have taken blame for societies problems. From religious text, to literature, to jazz, to rock ‘n’ roll, and rap… People have viewed various forms of media as being responsible for personal failings” (Ferguson 2007). These statements show that society has also had a tendency to blame their shortcomings on whatever seems to be the newest thing to arise in popular culture, and that no real evidence has been found to prove a correlation between aggression and video games. In his argument Ferguson

Although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it. I am focusing on violent video games and how they affect juveniles because I feel that this issue needs to be looked at in the criminal justice community. It is an unnecessary distraction to blame the actions of a disturbed youth on a form of entertainment that has been used by millions of people without incident. A review article published in The Psychiatric Quarterly found that many studies which claim to indicate an increase in aggression due to video games are, in fact, biased! Once the bias is taken into account, the studies no longer find any correlation between youths who play violent video games and youths who

Furthermore, no one is using video games as any sort of indicator of possible future violent behavior. The blame only comes after a major violent incident. Partially, this is because of how ubiquitous gaming has become. A study in 1996 showed that 98.7 percent of children, regardless of gender, had played video games, with violent games being particularly popular with males (93 percent had played fighting game “Street Fighter II” alone.) That was just in 1996, meaning the number has surely grown since then. With that many people playing video games, it’s almost impossible to find a crime that can’t be blamed on video games with the “They played games, that must be the cause” argument. In truth, the only useful indicator of potential future violence (as reported in a 2007 Secret Service report) was the person in question saying they wish to perform violent acts.(Ferguson)

Even though shootings and murders have happened, and one of the first things to be blamed is video games, the market for the games has increased dramatically. “US computer and video game software sales increased 204% from 1994 to 2014, reaching $13.1 billion in 2014, while murders by juveniles acting alone fell 76% and violent crime rates dropped 37% during that same period.” ("Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence"). Showing that the video games sales has increased and the violent crime rates have decreased over this time, suggests that video games aren't to blame for these shooting and murder

In today’s society the entertainment industry is being attacked from many angles. Television is being criticized by showing images of violence and aggression, music is being ridiculed for explicit lyrics, and within the last decade the issue of videogame violence and children has come to the attention of the mass media. The media, politicians, and many parents are blaming videogames for violent acts among children and those less than 18 years of age. But could videogames be the sole cause of violent crimes among children? In the fall of 2005 I took a course here at Coker called Videogames – Analysis and Research. The most popular topic discussed in our class was Violence and Aggression as a result of Violent Videogames. We studied

There are multiple cases of adolescent violence – particularly school shootings – that have been linked to the play of violent video games. While many people argue that violent video games have caused teenagers to commit violent acts towards the people around them, there is no evidence to suggest that the video games were the actual cause. There is only evidence that suggests the play of violent video games assisted these killers in their accuracy with their guns and desensitisation towards the original decision to fire a gun.

In this age of technology, it's very safe to say that a large majority of the world's population has played at least one video game. This can vary from playing games on console, like Xbox-One, Playstation 4, and for the older generation, the NES to playing mobile games like Tetris. There are many consoles that span from the creation of video games. This has opened opportunities to make several kind of games. These can vary from side-scrollers like Super Mario Bros. on the NES, to Role-playing games (RPG) like Final Fantasy IX on the Playstation 1. While this has caused some great games to surface, it has also allowed intense violence to be let into games. Parents and anti-gaming communities state that this is why kids can become violent. This is false, because violent games can be avoided to prevent this issue, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has even made various precautions to make sure parents know what they're purchasing. Comprehensible symbols, detailed lists, and age restrictions prevents children from "becoming violent".