Violent video games have been a popular pass time for American teenagers ever since the first ones were released. The most popular of these games are Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Mortal Kombat, and Doom. It has become a popular belief that these games are directly linked to violent behaviors in our youth. Numerous scholars have set out to determine the validity of these assumptions through vast surveys and studies in America. All of these scholars share the belief that violent video games affect the minds of teenagers in some way, but they do not necessarily agree on whether the effects are constructive or deconstructive in the development of young minds. Russell Laczniak, author of Parental Restrictive Meditation and Children’s …show more content…
He includes a meta-analysis that shows positive linkages between teenagers’ violent video gameplay and aggressive behaviors (Anderson et al. 2010 qtd in Laczniak 2017). Adel Agina, author of Towards Understanding the Positive Effects of Playing Violent Video Games on Children’s Development, has an understanding of the effects of violent video games that is contradictory to those of Laczniak. At the beginning of her article, Agina pronounces her agreement that violent video games are negatively disruptive in the advancement of children’s thoughts and behaviors, but then goes on to express that the games do not have the same effect on teenagers (Chambers & Ascion 1987: Griffith 1999). She completed studies that on the Children’s Behavioral Regulation (CBR), which refers to “the level of the children’s speech use, the differentiation and difference between private speech, social speech, and thinking aloud, and the degree of the children’s self-regulation learning and satisfaction during learning tasks when children act alone and without any human-human interaction or social intervention during learning tasks” (Agina 2012). The results of her studies proved her beliefs that there are positive outcomes to playing violent video games. Violent arousal has a positive effect on development in young people, especially in thinking aloud and self-regulation (Agina 2012). A measure of
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.
Are violent video games directly correlated to teen violence? This is the burning question many researchers are dedicated to answering. The common form of the question is “Is the increase in violence in games creating killer kids?” The simple answer is no. Instead the opposite has occurred, as games became more violent, the players became calmer. The games create a “safe” outlet for any anger or angst that young people possess. Crime rates in the teen population have lowered and violent teens admit to having little to no interest in violent video games. The games that most people fear are destroying the youth may actually be one of the things helping them grow and become “normal” members in society.
Violent video games are significantly associated with: increased aggressive behavior, thoughts and also cause increased physiological arousal and decreased pro-social behavior (Anderson). At the Indiana University School of Medicine, researchers say that brain scans of kids who played a violent video game showed an increase in emotional arousal and a corresponding decrease of activity in brain areas involved in self-control, inhibition, and attention. However what was not clear was what the MRI images indicate a lingering–or worse- permanent effect on the child’s brain, and what the effects longer playing times might have (Kalning). All of which are negative effects. Evidence form brain scans in another test seem to support a connection between playing video games and activation of regions of the brain associated
In today’s society there has been an ongoing debate regarding the effects of violent video games and the development of today’s youth. Many people believe that the violence in video games promotes aggression. According to Doctor Brad Bushman’s article, "Do Violent Video Games Increase Aggression?" he claims that violent video games leads to aggression because it is interactive process that teaches and rewards violent behavior. Yet others believe that this not the case. Gregg Toppo of the Scientific American, writes in his article, “Do Video Games Inspire Violent Behavior?” that video games are not a significant issue because teenagers know how differentiate between reality and fantasy. Because of the controversy surrounding this topic, I decided to research the question, “Does exposure to violent video games cause aggressive behavior among teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18?” Initially before performing any extensive research on this subject, I hypothesized that violent video games do cause aggressive behavior. I then proceeded to study different scholarly works that both supported and opposed my hypothesis. What I learned from those works eventually gave me a more complete understanding of the topic and allowed me to take a more educated stance.
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.
With todays market, if someone were to walk into any game store across the country, they would realize that any child with parental approval can attain these games, making it virtually easy for anyone of any age to play violent games. If we combine the 2009 study as well as this jaw-dropping statistic, we can easily see that most kids will grow up more violent than the previous generation, making today’s world full of danger and crime. Moreover, we can also see how indirectly, violent video games can cause teens to become more aggressive. According to a study conducted by Brad Bushman on violent video games, kids who played violent video games and were offered M&M candy to eat while playing ate almost three times as much candy compared to kids who played non-violent video games under the same circumstances. Not only does this show the physical health effects of these games, but by processing this information, one can see that it shows a foundational fact that kids show less restraint overall when playing violent video games, whether in candy or violence. To conclude this study further, Bushman measured direct aggression through having teens in both criteria play a game where they would blast someone else through noises with different volumes and lengths. The results showed that violent video gamers blasted their “partner” with louder and
Author, Steven F. Gruel, argues that there is an overwhelming amount of science and research that supports the claim that video games that are violent are indeed harmful to human development (Gruel 2010). It affects their development by causing them to act more violently. He begins by discussing that over time, usage of violent video games among youth has
For years, the media, teachers and various types of scientists have made the topic video games and the possible influence it has on child and teen aggression. The spark up of the controversy all started with the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. Since then, most, if not all instances similar to that have thought to be linked to videogame violence, which in turn has led to numerous studies about this topic.But be that as it may the link between violent video games and adolescent aggression is far from being proven fact, however we cannot jump to the conclusion that violent video games build adolescent aggression.
In 2013, President Obama requested congress to allocate ten million dollars for the research of the effects violent video games pose towards adolescents. Although many studies exist on the impact of video games, few have focused on the benefits. News stations are so quick to spread information on the negative effects that no one has taken into consideration that video games might have positive effects. I believe that taking a balanced perspective is essential to discovering the truth, especially with video games.
Video Game Violence has been a controversial topic for many years, dating back to even the most simple classic video games like Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede and Space Invaders, eventually pushing into more modern games like Grand Theft Auto V and Call of Duty: Black Ops. This investigation attempts to expand and analyze the idea that due to the historical trend of video game violence being accused of blame for seemingly related violent events, some of the research may be faulty. The way we look at video games and how we research their tie to violence could potentially need corrected. Within this investigation we will be looking very closely at how these tests were done, analyzing if they were valid, considering the people behind these tests and the general misconceptions people may have of video games and their impact on violence. Just about anyone in most modernized counties has heard the claim before, placing the blame on a video game, music or television for the violent acts seen in their youth today. Typically these trends seem to pop up when we are referencing school shootings, gang related crime and other domestic terrorist acts done by our youth. It is too easy to quickly blame something like a violent video game for their behavior. This investigation examines the actual statistics of these violent crimes and how they are tied to video games specifically.
For several decades, the idea of violence in the popular media influencing a young generation to violence has been hotly debated. Since the introduction of violent video games in the 1970’s, for example, the shooting games Empire and Maze War from 1973, people have noticed that violent video games induce violent behavior in players, especially in teenage males. Despite people seeing the negative influence of violent media earlier as well, only in the last two decades has video game violence come to the forefront as video game popularity has increased. With the growing influence of digital technology, people began to notice increasingly aggressive displays on the part of adolescent players. Moreover, the computer and game consoles became the most cherished adolescent toys, and violent video games their favorite pastime. Meanwhile, parents started to worry about their children’s activity, and whether violent video games lead juveniles to infractions of the law and to negative changes in their behavior.
school boys play violent video games while 40% do not. The study showed that boys
Statistically, it is difficult to correlate a direct behavioral effect of playing violent video games. Effectively evaluating violent behavior in children after playing video games has a great number of variables including environmental and cultural influences. Violence is no new concept to human beings regardless of age. Until recent years when school shootings and other extreme violent acts appeared in the media, no one was paying attention in great detail. Now society seeks a scapegoat for their children’s behavior and poor choices. The blame seems to have shifted from the parents and toward the teachers,
Violent contents within video games have become rampant especially amongst adolescents. At the same time, with the growing number of users being exposed to these games, it becomes crucial to research the potential threats which emerge from playing these games. What many may not realize is that research does assert how the violent contents within video games may lead to aggression, possibly from arousal and being desensitized to real violence. Whilst other researchers argue that the relationship between violent video games and desensitization to real violence is not causal and how other factors such as family violence, one’s development and genetic tendencies and one’s perception of violence may lead to one committing aggression or violence. This paper discusses such claims and analyzes both sides of the spectrum to see if this relationship is causal or external factors may be involved.
Video games are becoming ever more popular every day among adolescents, youth and adults. Video game play can be fun, recreational and now with video game consoles such as the Wii, it can even be healthy. However, some video games are brutally and exceedingly violent, which should be fine because after all it’s just a video game. However, we need to understand and know if the effects of these violent video games are positive or negative amongst the youth. There are arguments that say violence in video games are corrupt on the minds of the youth. Then, there are opposing arguments that say video games are an educational learning tool for them. This literature review will review both sides of this argument in an attempt to determine what effect violent video games may have on our youth.