Does Video Game Violence Contribute To Youth 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.

If you were to go up to any parent and ask them, "Do you believe video games cause violence in teens?" Most would say yes.

In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that California could not ban the sale of violent video games to minors because studies "do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively."

The first body of evidence that supports the claim that video games do not cause violence in reality is that “almost all boys and most girls play video and computer games, including games with violent content” (Olsen, Kutner, and Warner 56). This would suggest that if all children play violent video games and video games did in fact cause children to act violently, then all children would be violent. As absurd as this suggestion is, when the claim came

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that a 2005 law restricting the sale of violent video games to those under the age of 18 was unconstitutional. The court ruled that the law was not backed by scientific evidence and therefore goes against the first amendment, which requires proof of harm in order to violate. The case came about after a group of politicians expressed concern about the effects violent video games had upon children. Prosecutor Stefen F. Gruel fought in favor of the ban, citing studies and research which displayed a correlation between violent video games and violence in children. Whereas defense attorney Patricia A. Millett argued that the research was not thorough enough and that there is substantial evidence that negates the research Gruel’s used to argue his case. With the ever-increasing video game industry, it is important to fully understand the impacts such technology is having on children positive and negative. I believe that the evidence does not support a correlation between violence in video games and violence in children, though it does support the causation of other possible negative effects. I also do not think the government establishing a ban on violent video games for minors would greatly reduce the number of children playing them due to the culture of violence in the United States.

The Court decided that there was not enough substantive proof that video games established causality between violent video games and violent behavior. The Court then found that the California law did violate minors First Amendment right.

It has been proven that violent video games have been causing the recent school massacres in schools and public places. Teens should not be aloud to play these video games because it is proven that the violent video games have been causing all or most of the school shootings in the past recent years. Teens and kids should not be able to be exposed to these types of violent video games because it is mainly boys that have been causing deaths of teens and kids by school schoolings, the violent video games are causing school shootings , and the violent video games are causing mental health issues amongst this age group.

Video game violence does not cause youth violence and in fact may help to curb this violence. Violent video games have never been proven to cause youth violence. One of the most looked at franchises in video game history is Grand Theft Auto (GTA). However, since GTA hit the scene in a big way in 2001, youth violent crime has actually decreased! (Snyder, Sickmund, 2006)

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.

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.

Video games that show action violence will cause children to act out those actions, false. Video games do not push kids to act different ways. If a ten-year-old boy plays Madden football games does that make them an NFL superstar? Simply playing a video game may give you the idea of something, but it will not directly cause a child to do whatever he or she saw. On a similar note, if a young boy/girl

Supreme Court in its 2011 Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association decision. As became apparent in that case (and in cases before it), much of the scholarly community has come to consider media violence an all-encompassing whole, such that a picture of a gun is as likely to increase aggression as is a violent video game. Much time has been spent debating the merits of the aggression measures used in this research (and see the Supreme Court's majority reaction to them, which was less-than-impressed, to say the least), but the vagueness of the term "violent video game" (or "media violence," for that matter) is also problematic for how the construct is measured in research. Many studies continue to settle for dubious approaches, such as allowing kids to rate how violent the games they play are, then asking them how aggressive they are, an approach that can cause spurious correlations. Other surveys assume that entire genres of games can be reliably scored as violent or nonviolent without even knowing the individual game

I think that video games are causing youth violence among underaged children. One claim to support this is, “video games are uniquely problematic in that the viewer isn’t simply sitting back and watching the violence.”As said by Timothy Winter. If you were to compare a child who had no violence video game experience vs a child who did have violence game experience, you could clearly see the difference (when they would be playing a video game that includes violence). The Parents Television Council even showed us the rate that an underage child was able to purchase an adult video game. The results were 36% of the time. I agree with this because, when purchasing an adult rated video game, the salesman just gives you the slightest reminder

Playing video games does not cause violent behavior. Don’t get me wrong, some video games show horrific acts of violence. “A recent survey found that 92 percent of U.S. kids--ages 2 to 17--play video games, and their parents bought 225 million of them last year to the tune of $6.4 billion.” (Sider 79).What’s here to argue is that violent video games do not cause violence among children, but the blame for violence should be on the individual and people who should have taught the individual better. If kids are not able to see the difference between reality and fantasy, then they really can’t be blamed for committing acts they see in a game and then imitating, not fully understanding the consequences of doing it in the real world.

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.