Do Games Like Grand Theft Auto V Cause Real World Violence

Hundreds of studies have been done to determine whether violent video games will really make juveniles more violent. Randomized experiments were used in several studies to examine the short-term effect of violent video games (Anderson and Berkowitz et al. 90). In these studies, children were randomly assigned to play violent or nonviolent video games and then were observed when given an opportunity to be aggressive. The result was that children who played violent video games usually behaved aggressively.

Many people believe that violent video games play a big role in the violence we see in schools today. Gaming plays a large role in children’s lives and have begun to

“Many video games sold to the general public, including Metal Gear Solid 2 and Full Spectrum Warrior, were originally developed by the military to be used for sniper training. One effect of these games is to suppress the natural inhibition to kill. The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service contend that intense engagement with these violent video games is a factor in numerous school shootings. In fact, killing simulation games have been found in the homes of most school shooters who use these games to prepare for attacks on their classmates.” So, if we are going to blame video games and now call them killing simulators, why aren’t shootings happening every day in every school. Most teenagers who play these first person shooters, have either never seen or shot an actual weapon. You have to also think about the weapons in these games. Most of these weapons don’t even exist, and even if they did, a teenager could not possibly get their hands on them unless they are already members of gangs, or their parents own one, which isn’t always the case. Mr. Thompson also talks about how police found these violent games in the hands of those who decided to shoot up a school. Well, that’s like saying 100 percent of murderers was found to drink water. You can pick any random child in high school, odds are they have a “violent” video game in their home, so this particular research seems to be very bias and not even well thought out. A middle

Additionally, although violent video games might expose children to violent behavior, the amount of violence are not as great as the ones in movies and television. The news is filled with stories of war and murder, and nearly every movie contains some forms of violence. Plus, these two media are different from games in a very important way because they involve real people, not computer-generated characters. One of the social psychological science faculties in

In America’s daily consumption of media a strange trend has developed in the last couple years. It seems that whenever a real life tragedy occurs many news outlets and politicians tend to place the blame, not in the instigator of these violent acts, but instead in the media they consume which they believed made them this way. "I think there's a question as to whether he would have driven in his mother's car in the first place if he didn't have access to a weapon that he saw in video games that gave him a false sense of courage about what he could do that day." (Murphy) This quote taken from an 2013 debate on a bill to ban assault weapons gives us all the information we need. Violence in media and how it affects violence in real life is misrepresented

For many teenagers in America, simulated games with violence are all they do and all they think about. You can argue that violent games teach kids to strategize quickly, but what about all of the negative effects? Kids are proven to be more aggressive playing these violent role playing games. Psychologists who study human behavior won’t even let their own kids play these barbaric games. Also violent games can cause kids to lose sympathy and be immune to traumatic experiences. Kids should be limited on playing these violent games so they aren’t a risk to themselves or others.

This could be opening the doors to a plethora of other cases and assumptions that can lead to our youth potentially becoming killers. Research was conducted on the exposure of television violence and its effects on kids, organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that there is a cause and effect relationship amongst those exposed. However, such studies does not demonstrate that media violence causes aggressive behavior, only that the two phenomena exist together (207). This finding was used to make the assumption that it would likely be the case with video games.

In their research of violent videogames and the effect on children, they have found that “the simplistic belief that exposure to media violence will lead directly to individual violence is clearly wrong.” (Kutner, Olsen, 2008) I am going to ask you to look deeper than this. I assert that although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it.

For many teens, simulated violence games are apart of their daily lives. Research has shown that teens who participate in simulated violence games are more likely to experience problems in the future. Simulated violence games are highly problematic and push teens to be more aggressive and more mean than those who choose not to participate in these games. Simulated violence games should be avoided because the games could potentially teach these teens that violence is normal and killing isn’t a bad thing. The games could distract them from school assignments, and could teach teens that using negative emotions is okay. Simulated violence games could also teach teens to be too aware of the world around them.

One reason why games with simulated violence are more perilous for teens than helpful is it causes them to take extreme measures in order to win. This is seen in the game played in several New York City high schools

Role playing games with simulated violence are diverting. They increase focus levels and can help make friendships. If someone was on a team, working with them together towards a common goal they might become quick friends. Or if someone had to save the team they would be able to focus better since it would feel like more was at stake. Role playing games with simulated violence are not dangerous as long as people don’t take it too far.

In Grand Theft Auto, you run a round picking up jobs in an imaginary city. These jobs range from killing union workers to stealing pricy automobiles. In Conker’s Bad Fur day, you play as a playful cartoon squirrel that drinks beer and urinates on the enemy to defeat him. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, 90% of the games played today actually reward the player to injure another person and these were the games rated Teen. These types of gratuitous violence portrayed in video games transfer over into the everyday lives of these children. Studies of children exposed to violence have shown that they can become: “immune” or numb to the horror of violence, imitate the violence they see, and show more aggressive behavior the more they’re exposed to violence. Some children accept violence as a way to handle problems. Studies have also shown that the more realistic and repeated the exposure to violence, the greater the impact on children. For instance, a child in Kentucky ended up bringing a revolver to school and shot 8 students. Police ended up pin-pointing the source to the video games the child had been playing. The child ended up raking in more than 10,000 hours of a shoot em’ up style game that rewarded bonus points for headshots.

Students who had previously played the violent video game delivered longer noise blasts to their opponents (Anderson & Dill, 2000). In a study of 8th and 9th graders, students who played more violent video games were also more likely to see the world as a hostile place, to get into frequent arguments with teachers, and to be involved in physical fights It has often been suggested that violent video games are not the culprit for these types of behaviors; instead, the cause is underlying hostility. The argument goes, "Hostile kids get into more arguments and more fights. They also like to play more violent games." While this is true, it is not the whole story. This study measured children’s trait hostility, and found that exposure to video game violence is a significant predictor of physical fights, even when students’ sex, hostility level, and amount of video game playing are controlled statistically. If hostility were the whole story, then in general, only hostile children would tend to get into fights, and children with the lowest hostility scores would not get into physical fights regardless of their video game habits. Figure 1 shows the percentages of students who report being involved in physical fights within the previous year. Children with the lowest hostility scores are almost 10 times more likely to have been involved in physical fights if they play a lot of

Violent games are often played by kids, and kids are the main group of people who have desire to win. So, this mentality causes them get more and more angry, which may directly led to crimes. It is easy to have a casual effect after losing a game. That could makes people want to play another round, until they addicted into games. Children are still growing, and they start another game because they lose the last game, and this cycle will make the children more addictive. If games play more, they will feel immersive, it will give people a fake impression, and will affect the children 's growth. Also it influencing people’s time, this may cause children have less time to feel our planet, the outside world. Some of them are limited by violent video games, because they already addicted by those games. Secondly, violent behavior in reality is often caused by violent video games. People who likes to play violent video games are easy to get confused about reality and virtual. People are very focus when they play games, games could let people feels they are the character in the game. It could make people get angry, and once they finished their game, back to reality, they also may still think about the game, and want to have a chance to experience it, whether the result is as same as the game or not, and this could lead them to have a strong violent behavior in reality. Violent video games may change

Most of us have certainly pondered on the thought if video games truly create violent citizens, I personally believe that video games do not what so ever. One must distinguish this topic accurately and consider learning to differentiate and not have a biased or radical opinion. There have been many attempts from a number of different people who have tried to give a bad name to video games due to the simulations and realness and say that video games will create a negative environment for anyone who plays them, especially in children. Enthusiasts of video games have spent decades asserting that there is no underlying link between playing violent titles and engaging in the violent real-world behavior. Brand-new data confirms their contentions.