Prose Reader Essays

As they would instead speculate that anger is what drives individuals to kill and however depression can lead to anger. Mike McIntire, author of the article, “What Makes a Shooter Do It,” explains that many shooters are usually suffering from a psychological issue mixed in with the depression. Rebecca J. Rosen, “Violence is Contagious,” does an example of a study done to children in Israel determined their depression levels to rise up with all the real violence they viewed and somehow, they developed coping into the same violent acts. Now some may even say video games produce the same effect, but the person isn’t produced fear from playing the game compared to viewing in real life. Flanagan mentions that anything could create violent ideas if we sat down to think about it, even something as meaningless as toy

Memory is a powerful concept. Often when an individual undergoes a traumatic situation, the ramifications of these actions seep into an individualfs psyche unknowingly. In effect this passes through memory and becomes sub-consciously buried within a personfs behavioural patterns generally. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink explores the concept of a young mans subconscious desire for a woman whom he gcanft remember to forgeth (1Memento) as she is so deeply inlaid within his soul.

Original: Mass shootings and gun homicides are two main ways these occur. Additionally, these killings occur throughout society in places that should be safe such as movie theaters, night clubs, and schools. In the United States in 2015, a total of 372 mass shootings occurred. These incidents resulted in killing 475 individuals and injuring 1,870 more (Oldham 2016). It is quite clear that these numbers are too high. If nothing is done to prevent these numbers from continuing to rise, America will shortly become a place that nowhere is safe including people’s own

Some scholars argue however that violence in television, films and video games has in fact the opposite effect. As individuals become ‘saturated’ with violence, it can lead to a catharsis where videogames, television and films become a safe outlet to for aggressive feelings and emotions; as a result, individuals become less violent. Naturally, this argument goes against the idea that children are highly influenced by modelled behaviour as they try to replicate what they see (Freedman 2001). The influence of video games is therefore highly complex to resolve. Poole (2000) therefore argues that videogames may simply be part of many factors that lead to violent behaviour. Videogames as films and television may influence real life violence by having a particular style that is imitated. Pool argues that it is possible that the teenage murderers in America may have imitated the way in which people are killed in the video game Doom, however it is not possible to say that without playing the game they would not have killed their classmates. Research conducted in America reiterates this statement,

In the recent years, the conversations of gun violence are increasing dramatically because of some homicide cases. Truly, the gun violence has been the one of biggest elements which threat both personal safety and national security in the United States. Website named Smartgunlaws.org stated that “Since 2015, the total number of incidents is 42,847; Number of deaths are 11,021; It is a really shocked statistics.” (Smartgunlaws.org,2012) It is a really shocked statistic that there are so many people died because of gun violence, but unfortunately there still some people don’t know what is gun violence. A professional editor Mascia defined that “Gun violence describes the results of all incidents of death or injury or threat with firearms without pejorative judgment within the definition. Violence is defined without intent or consequence as a consideration. To that end a shooting of a victim by a perpetrator is considered gun violence as is a defensive use or an officer involved shooting. The act itself, no matter the reason is violent in nature.” (Mascia, Fuhrman,2015).

In article “Murder Isn’t a Nationwide Problem”, John R. Lott, Jr., does not struggle to layout the statistics that prove to us, the audience, that murder really isn’t a nationwide problem and that killings only take place in some places. In fact, the last sentence he states is: “To put it simply, murder isn’t a nationwide problem; it’s a problem in a very small set of urban areas”. Throughout the article, Lott, Jr. gives us many statistics saying the murders and the population in these “urban areas”.

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

The United States of America has one of the highest rates of Homicide in the developed world, though most people tend to agree that Russia’s homicide rate are higher, the question remains as to why. The following essay will look at three different perspectives of the same American phenomenon of high homicide rates. All three pieces state that homicide rates are uniquely high in the United States, this is in stark contrast to other like developed nations such as France, Germany, and The United Kingdom. America’s homicide rates are unquestionably high, but the reason they are so high in this country is a matter of speculation and debate. This paper will highlight the similarities and differences on the issue homicide rates within this country.

“Violent video games increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and aggressive behaviors and decrease empathic feelings and prosocial behaviors” (Gregory Ferenstein). Gaming devices not only desensitize us, but it heightens our chances of going out and committing acts of violence. Such as, James Holmes because of the games that he played (Call of Duty, Advanced Warfare and etc.) he believed that for every person he killed; he would receive a point for doing so. “There are definitely games kids shouldn't be playing, she said, for example those where hunting down and killing people is the goal)” (Anne Harding, CNN). After playing these games, many kids feel as if the real world is like a game and killing people to earn points is rewarded. Video games have changed our America to believing that death and violence should be rewarded, but with a twist and that includes handcuffs and a prison

This could be opening the doors to a plethora of other cases and assumptions that can lead to our youth potentially becoming killers. Research was conducted on the exposure of television violence and its effects on kids, organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that there is a cause and effect relationship amongst those exposed. However, such studies does not demonstrate that media violence causes aggressive behavior, only that the two phenomena exist together (207). This finding was used to make the assumption that it would likely be the case with video games.

After reading the article, I would have to agree that murder is not a nationwide problem. Firstly, I completely agree that it is a problem in certain urban areas. However, as a whole country, it is not an issue. My family is from a small country in central america known as El Salvador. In El Salvador, there is at least one murder everyday due to the gang violence in the country. The gang issue has gone out of hand that there is even a travel warning. Thus, knowing of the violence there, it is no comparison to the “problem” some think we have here. After looking at the data provided in the article, it was not surprising. It is evident that there are urban areas with a murder issue, such as the city of Chicago. I believe that there should be

How many TV shows a day depict gruesome deaths? How many video games are coming this year where the main goal is to kill? Chances are, a lot. Violence is everywhere in today’s society, and it is ever prevalent in the lives of most adolescents. The book What Are They Thinking by Aaron M. White and Scott Swartzwelder describes how this violence, whether virtual or in real-life, affects the changing adolescent brain. The book is about teenage psychology and brain science, and was released in 2013. In the Violence chapter of the book many studies about how violence affects and desensitizes children and adolescents were referenced. However, nearly all of them were were supporting the bias that any type of violence, including simulated, causes both grade school children and teens to become more violent. More importantly, not everyone is the same, and therefore are not affected the same by violence.

The adversary also contends that violent media, in particular shooting games are training children to kill people. Leo affirms that “Psychologist David Gross of Arkansas State University, a retired Army officer, thinks ‘point and shoot’ video games have the same effect as military strategies used to break down a soldier’s aversion to killing” (Leo). There are several problems with this evidence however, including the fact that the comparison between military strategies and violence in the media is not the same. Military strategies have a purpose to actually remove their soldier’s aversion to killing whereas the media’s purpose is to entertain someone. The other side states that said media, specifically video games, are targeting people to want to kill innocent people. Leo contests that “One ad for a Sony game says: ‘Get in touch with your gun-toting, testosterone pumping, cold-blooded murdering side’” (Leo). However the problem with this evidence is that an advertisement doesn’t actually cause violent

regular thing in the everyday life of a young individual, and that is pretty scary. There are studies that the article titled “Kill your television kill violence” illustrates for the reader. The anonymous author claims that “A recent study conducted at the University of Michigan has determined that the strongest predictor of violence in adulthood is children's repeated exposure to violent entertainment and participation in the virtual violence found in most video games”(n.a). The many factors of what makes up and what has great influence on the teenage brain should be taken into great consideration for when deciding if a juvenile really was getting a thrill out of murdering a person. It is definitely scary if juvenile was only feeling a thrill

“Head shot! That guy was destroyed!” These are just some examples of the dialogue spoken between children who play video games like “Call of Duty” or “Halo.” Children brag about the number of people they have killed in these games. Playing violent video games may cause children to act violently. First, violent video games train players to act aggressively by repeatedly killing an enemy over and over. Second, children mimic what they see, whether it’s in real life or on a video screen. Third, being exposed to the violent behaviors of the game, dead bodies, and blood, make the players insensitive to violence. Because the violence from video games affects the behavior of children, violent video games should not be available for purchase by anyone under age eighteen.