Do violent video games cause behavioral problems? For years this topic has been highly debated amongst parents and the players. Violent video games do cause behavioral problems because they alter a gamers mind.
Risk factors are a major part of behavioral problems. A risk factor of behavior problems are behaviors that are harmful, disruptive, and impulsive. A majority of researchers say that it is unlikely that playing violent video games will cause a child with no other risk factors to turn into an extremely violent person(Lee). This being said, violent video games are a common risk factor among adolescents (Cooper). Personal background, peers, neighborhoods, and genetics are other common risk factors. Combined, these risk factors can cause violent behavior to occur (Calvert).
Continually being exposed to violent acts will eventually lead to violent behavior. Exposure to violence will cause some form of violence to develop over time. Unnecessary violence, such as video games, are causing problems that would otherwise not be an issue. For example, in one study, 161 nine through twelve-year old's and 344 college students were randomly assigned to play either a violent or nonviolent video game throughout a specific amount of time. The participants played a game against the computer in which they set punishments levels for their opponents. Those who played the violent games appeared to have harsher punishments than those who played nonviolent games (Cooper).
Children often imitate the actions of characters from games they play and find it difficult to separate reality from fantasy. “Kids are changing the way they think.” Says Dr. Gentile. He explains that long-term exposure to this media can potentially lead to changes in both thinking and behavior. Generally speaking, when children play these games they really enter into the spirit of things. In many of these games, one must play as a specific character throughout the game. From beginning to end, the player is required to make decisions as if he/she was actually that character, facing new challenges and completing quests with every new section of the game. “These games require the player to be an active participant, allowing them to decide the destiny of their
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.
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.
This article is a very useful source. Is useful because it answers the question, “Do violent video games cause an increase in aggression.” The question is answered thoroughly by the author because they cited recent studies, examples, and peer reviewed or scholarly sources that all concluded that violent video games cause an increase in aggression. The author is objective because they countered their argument by stating that
There is overwhelming scientific research that suggests that playing violent video games are harmful to children and adolescents. The scientific evidence has uncovered several areas in the development of children and adolescent that are negatively impacted because of the exposure to and playing of violent video games. Some of the key areas that are negatively affected include brain activity, stress levels and behavior.
A CNN report stated “A recent meta-analysis in 2010 of 12 earlier studies found a link between time spent playing bloody video games and violent behavior later in life.” Being exposed to the idea of violence can put ideas in your head and can cause a more likely chance for someone to act on their thoughts of
Since violent video games, like Mortal Kombat, were created, adolescents who play these games become more aggressive than before. To me, playing violent video games is unsafe for these people since they have the negative influence on these people. I believe that researching on that topic would help us get the sense of what problems to avoid. I wish to know what are the possible effects of violent video games on adolescents’ aggression. The independent variable is violent video games, and the dependent variable is adolescents’ aggression. My hypothesis is that adolescents who play violent video games become very aggressive than those who don’t. For this essay, I would like to present the findings from each article that will answer
life after a game is finished. When a child plays video games, the game can totally
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.
Video games have become a staple in the entertainment industry. Families coming from various backgrounds across the world own a video game system. Shooting games such as call of duty have become particularly popular amongst young teenagers. These types of games have led to a very popular debate. The question being do violent video games make children violent? Prosecutor Steven F. Gruel believes that they do cause children to become violent while defense attorney Patricia A. Millett argues that there is not enough evidence to prove this to be true.
Teen violence is a term used to define collective behaviors by teenagers that are not acceptable by the society. These behaviors range from slapping, bullying, hitting, assault and even armed robbery. Teen violence has been affecting many societies and has destructive history to communities. Although many factors have been pointed out to cause teen violence, studies show that modeling behaviors are the most common causes of teen violence in the society. These include behaviors as seen in the movies, on the streets, on the video games and at home. Social engineering factors and psychology behind teen violence are some of the main challenges contributing to teen violence. Video games, in particular, have caused the prevalence
The video game industry has grown to gigantic proportions; it’s a medium of entertainment that has great influence over the youth and adults globally. As with any media channel it is diverse in its content from childish themes to more mature topics.
Hamilton-Giachritsis (2005), Erwin and Morton (2008), Gentile and Stone (2005), and Jason et al. (2005) revealed a correlation between violent video games with immediate and later aggressive behavior. All of the research for the effects of violent videos games are conducted on older children and current research has not yet studied young children or preschoolers. It is important to note what research exclaims about the long-term effects violent video games can have on children later in life during adolescence (Anderson et al., 2008; Gentile & Stone, 2005; Kirkorian, Wartella, & Anderson, 2008). Anderson et al. (2008) and Gentile (2014) reported, 90% of American
First, I will discuss studies that have shown that violent video games do not lead to increased violence in children. For this I have found a study that
Recently the debate on whether or not violent video games cause violent tendencies in children and young adults has been spread around. With this widely known debate dating back from the early days of Asteroid in the late 1970’s, we have to really think about how long this issue has been going on without a break. Movies, books, newspapers, basically all things that have to do with either the media or entertainment have gone through this argument phase and passed it, but video games are still being targeted 40 years later, still going hot, and shows no sign of slowing down. Now let me ask you, have you watched any violent movies? Have they made you contemplate murders or any other violent actions? The answer is probably no. So, what makes video games so much more viable as a target? The simple fact would be they’re everywhere now days. With video games being is almost every home around the world and an even larger growing part of the coming generations, people have cold feet about how young children are being introduced to violence. From an Uncle’s stand point I feel their concern. I don’t believe my 8 year old nephew should play something like Gears of War at that early stage in life, but playing something with violence will not make him a murderer. The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) is set in place and funded for only one reason, to regulate the way games are sold. This rating system clearly defines the age group that is best suited to play a certain game, now
“Life is a video game. No matter how good you get, you are always zapped in the end” (“Video Game Quotes” 1). Over time researchers, psychiatrists, and parents have often wondered how damaging violent video games can be to the youth in society. This is an important matter to people with children in their personal lives or work environment. These games have become a large risk factor for aggressive behavior in children. Researchers have been saying that video games do affect adults as well; however, they have even more effect on younger brains in early development. Video games have negative effects on childrens’ behavior. Some effects that video games have are reduced academic performance, aggression, obesity, and emotional disorder.