How Does Violent Videogames Cause Violence?

“Evidence that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time and cause people to view the world as a hostile and violent place, said study co-author Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University” (Preidt). With that people tend to think and act hostile when playing those types of games. “Playing video games could be compared to smoking cigarettes," Bushman said. "A single cigarette won't cause lung cancer, but smoking over weeks or months or years greatly increases the risk”(Bushman). With this statement it's true when it comes to the first time when playing violent video games that it won't do any hurt at all but when you constantly play violent video games you just are setting yourself up for mental changes. As for mental changes I mean by the way people think about events that happen in real life such as a shooting or something along those lines, people won't be affected because they’ll think those are normal. As for all of this violent video games do a lot more mental damage than people

Not all video games are the same, but that’s doesn’t matter because the violent one only receives attention from the media. For example, CNN covered a story on an 18-year-old gunman in Germany, they proceeded to accuse violent video games because the kid was a fan of first person shooter games. They then proceeded to talk about why they are bad and how there is a significant link between violence and video games. “Overall, the academy's summary of the results from more than 400 studies revealed a "significant" link between being exposed to violent media (in general) and aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts and angry feelings” (Scutti par.6). They then proceeded to failing to defend why video games are bad by saying “He discovered that playing video games, no matter how

Throughout history man kind has always searched for ways to entertain himself, each time developing new activities and games. Video games have become a very popular way to spend time and have fun from the 1970’s up to now. With new developments appeared different video game genres from adventure to racing, but the violent video games appear to be the most popular ones (Shin, 2003), for example: shooters, fighting and video games where you have to eliminate, destroy, or kill your enemies.

“According to data recently released by The NPD Group, in 2012, U.S. video game software sales reached $6.7 billion (174.8 million units) and computer game sales were $380 million (13.2 million units)” (Improving Economy). To many, the violent video game industry has turned all adolescents into mass murderers. However, they’re absolutely wrong. Very seldom do adolescents who play violent video games commit acts of violence, and the ones who do usually have a mental disorder. Instead of blaming the tragedies that occur on violent video games, the news media should explain to people that a large percentage of young males play violent video games, indicating that the two are uncorrelated. They should alternatively research other possible solutions to the crisis. In lieu of negatively affecting people’s lives, video games could potentially improve their lives!

In society, video games have been criticized as an inducer for violent in children. The ongoing debate instigates research on the correlation between video games and violence. In Craig Anderson’s article, “Violent Video Games and Other Media Violence, Part II”, the author criticizes the opposing side and states that violence in media reflects violent behaviors in children. John Glynn’s article, “Guns and Games”, reasons on the benefits of video games and points out the true perpetrator for violent behaviors of youth in the United States to be the gun culture.; While Glynn’s article contains some form of pathos, there is a lack of pathos in Anderson’s. Both articles utilize logos and ethos. However, Glynn offers a more well-rounded argument to support that video games are beneficial and are not the true cause of aggression in children.

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.

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

As many as 97% of US kids age 12-17 play video games, contributing to the $21.53 billion domestic video game industry. More than 50% of games have violence. (Procon.org) Video games that have violence have been blamed to have caused bullying, mass shootings, and violence towards women. (Procon.org) An estimated four out of five US households with a male child own a video game system and worldwide series of video games are predicted to reach $102.9 billion in 2017. (Procon.org) Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence and it rewards players for simulating violence . (Procon.org)

As technology as progressed, more people, especially youth, take part in playing video games. There has been an steady increase of video game usage because of the fact that video games have become more life-like and realistic. While they have become more realistic in aesthetic ways, they have also become more violent in content as well. Games like Call of Duty

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.

If there were no violent video games, would it just be that people turn to other entertainment mediums such as movies and still cause these brutal outbursts. They are a runaway train heading on a course of utter brutality and destruction. A study was published in the United States showing that only 12% of people in a school of misbehaved pupils causing or taking part in aggressive behaviour had an interest in violent video games while 37% “exhibited an interest in their own writings, such as poems, essays or journal entries”. In addition to this, the idea of using different media sources as a scapegoat is not new. In the 1950’s comic books were blamed for violence and that was verified not to be the case. So it is the same story just a different media getting blamed.

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 can desensitize children. Studies show that most video games in today’s society contain some type of

Over the years, the popularity of computer and video games has grown. Specifically violent video games make up more than 50 % of the top selling games. These games include violent themes that involve guns, crime, blood, and gore. There is an ongoing belief that these types of games are to blame for the many acts of violence in society and have encouraged America’s youth to act out in aggression. Several organizations, such as the PTC (Parents Television Council) have moved to discourage the development of violent games while also pushing for stronger regulations when purchasing such games. There is also debate among parents and concerns on how games can negatively influence their children. So is there a direct link between video games and violence? The truth is video games do not encourage violence in society based on several factors which include scientific studies, statistics on crime, and prevention measures adopted by game publishers.

“Recent contents analyses of video games show that many as 89% of games contain some violent contents” (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, Walsh 3). More than half of video games being sold around the world contain some form of violence. All of the violence involved in the video games being played by children is a pattern leading to aggression. Aggression can be caused by many things; however, violent video games are the main cause of aggression in young adults. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad, Alto 1). Thinking that violence in the virtual world is the same as in the real world is the first step to showing aggression. Aggression in children caused by video games is the biggest effect parents and researchers worry about. Violent video games teach children that shooting and killing people are