Do Video Games Make People Violent?

A huge controversy in today’s society is violent video games and their behavioral effect on the children and adults who play them. Violent video games have been blamed for bullying, school shootings, and even violence towards women. Many have fought that violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence, and that they are teaching the youth that violence is an acceptable conflict-solving strategy. Other sources have stated otherwise. The 2004 Secret Service has stated that only one-eighth of attackers have exhibited interests in video games. Violent Video games do not cause violent behavior or behavior problems because it has not been proven that there is a link between violent video games and behavioral issues, playing video games provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and reduces violence in young children, and violent juvenile crime has actually gone down since the violent video game popularity has increased.

Prolonged scenes of massive violence, graphic sexual content, and animated blood are examples of statements that the Entertainment Software Rating Board uses to depict the content in over fifty- five percent of the video games rated yearly. The debate of whether the aggressive nature of these video games influences youth violence in our country has been heatedly battled for decades. Since the mid 1980’s, it has been suggested that high profile cases of violence are due to an aggressor’s excessive video game use. However, much like a cold case the type of connection between video game use and youth violence remains without a definite answer. Most believe that video game use negatively influences child aggression acts in our country. Others firmly declare that video games provide a realm of opportunity for child development. Ultimately, it is impossible to say that video game use affects every child the same way. New studies suggest that video games do not affect every child that plays a game. Although violent video games are innocuous for the majority of adolescents between the ages of twelve and eighteen, the effects of these games are aggravated in those with pre- existing antisocial or depressive traits.

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.

Technology is an important aspect of change in our world. As time goes on, we are introduced to more and more technology every year, which includes media such as video games. The increase of technology has also increased and improved the world including ways of communicating and distribution of information. More often used outlets of media are those used for entertainment purposes, like television, internet and video games. The ones who are most likely to engage in these media outlets are millennials and the most recent generation Z, because they have been introduced to these outlets from a young age. In fact, a study found that children spend around 9 hours a week playing video games (Polman, de Castro, & van Aken, 2008). It is evident that video games are progressively becoming more violent in nature, and with children spending as much time as they do playing video games, there are questions that must be asked, is the violent nature of video games effecting today’s youth? And if so in what ways?

It is agreeable that there are some correlation between teenagers playing video games and how it affects the youth mentally. Heavy consumption of violence video games does indeed stimulate a change reaction in the brain waves, but there is no hard evidence stating that those changes causes teenagers to act aggressively and violently. On the contrary, it is a popular beliefs that violence video games does indeed causes teenagers to displayed unpleasant behaviors and actions because that is what they learned and observed from the games. Therefore, parents should limit and regulate the amount of time their teenagers are playing violence video games so that they can protect their children from negative behaviors.

Violent video games are contributing to violent behaviors in the youth and teenagers of America. Youth violence is a seemingly increasing problem in the United States. Juvenile centers are gaining new residents each day.This violence is brought on by an increase in video game violence. Many of the newly developed games are killing simulators which train players for real world violence. There seems to be a lack in evidence against video games. “According to the federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low” (Jenkins 32). So called links between video games and youth violence are said to be found, but these links are coming from people who solely research media violence.

A video game is “an electronic game in which players control images on a television or computer screen” (Merriam-Webster). Video games have been entertaining and challenging gamers since the Game Boy to modern console games. Despite the simplicity of the definition of video games, a video game, especially ones containing violence can have a large effect on the gamer. Because of the realism and advancements in the video game industry, video games can influence the player, and can make the gamer more aggressive, even if the game is not a violent video game. Even though video games have grown in popularity over the past decade, some have not been too popular with parents, for the reason that they are too violent. Violent video games affect

In April 26, 2002, nineteen-year-old Robert Steinhäuser, was found armed with a pistol and shotgun, at the high school in Erfurt. He then proceeded to shoot and kill 16 people before taking his own life. The report found that while Steinhäuser's grades and attendance were falling and that he became more involved with a local shooting club and began assembling a personal weapons arsenal. The report also stated that he had a collection of violent films and computer games in his room during an investigation pursuant to the shooting (Diamond).

People think that violent video games make a person more violent in reality. Scientists have ran tests for 607 8th and 9th graders who play violent video games. It all just depends on the person and their state of mind. Some cases would show some students would have more frequent arguments with teachers, physical fights too.

Ever since the nineteen eighties people, usually politicians and the news media, have been quick to blame video games for societal woes, saying violence in video games causes violent behavior and makes people anti-social. Some have even argued video games cause racism, sexism, and cause health problems, but most research that points towards video games being bad are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. And yet people still want to restrict and censor video games, even though they are an art form just like film or paintings or what have you, and because they are an art form they are a form of media and are protected under the first amendment. Violent video games do not cause real world violence like any art form they only mirror the violence of the real world, and it is contradictory to think that they cause actual violence. Video games have even been shown to be healthy, they relieve stress and increase hand eye coordination, and are a positive, non-violent form of relieving aggression in a way that does not cause physical harm to others.

From Math Games for kids to blood and gore video games have a lot of different sides to them. Video games are decided on by the player. Saying that games cause violent behavior in kids is inaccurate. We as people decide who we are and what we will do with our lives. A digital screen and a controller can’t make us any more violent than we already are. Blaming violence on a simple sixty dollar piece of plastic is unfair. Games are rated early childhood to Adult only. This means that what we play is up to us and we are in control of what we choose to have around us. This also means that if you are a parent and you buy a rated M game for your seven years old it is your fault. Video games do not influence violent behavior in kids because there are multiple positive facts about video games that are proven while most negative data on video games aren’t proven and are just speculation, it reduces stress and the chances of the player bullying others.

Many people think video games can cause violence. Most of the people reading this would say yes, that video games do cause violence because a lot of times you see video games connect with violence on the news, but how often are video games the main reason that the act of violence someone caused happened. But what is video game violence and how do these scientists classify it? Most importantly how do you measure aggression?There have been 300 studies give or take between 2005 to 2013. That's on average 37.5 studies per year over eight years. Yet none has yielded a good answer on if video games cause violence or not.

Do violent video games contribute to young children? Violent video games do contribute to young kids. There is a need to inform how children can be affected by violent video games since these games have become more popular and widely available.

Past studies have shown a link between violent video games and an increase in aggressive behaviors. The intent of the present study was to further investigate these findings. It was predicted that players who engage in violent video games would show higher rates of aggression. Participants (N = 20) were asked to complete two short surveys, the Buss and Perry (1992) aggression questionnaire and Anderson and Dill’s (2000) video game exposure scale. The results of the study did not support the prediction, nor did they corroborate the findings from previous research. Identifying the relationship between violent video games and aggression is rather complex. Earlier studies have shown varying results; however, much of the research has shown a positive correlation between video game violence and real-world aggression.

When it comes to video games there can be a lot of violence, drug use, sex, and harsh language. Due to this, games are required to have a rating on them (ProCon). The ratings are set as guidelines. The ratings go from E (everyone) to AD (adults only). A lot of the more popular games are rated M for mature. A few examples of this are Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto Five, Halo, and Gears of War. Sadly these games have been given a bad reputation due to some people saying that the violence can lead to people acting violently in reality. Some killings have been blamed on video games in the past. One of these killings includes the Columbine Shooting on Apr. 20, 1999. It was said that the teens that killed all of those people play violent video games (ProCon). That may be true, but those teens had access to guns. Putting blame on just one thing will not show the bigger picture. The guns must have been in reach and not locked up for the teens to have gotten a hold of them and