The Effects Of Video Games On Violent Behavior, Ethos, Pathos, And Logos

In my most recent essay I wrote of the violence attributed to video games in light of various shootings and other tragedies that occurred in the past year or so. In this essay I argued that despite their violent content, video games are not completely to blame for acts of violence committed by children. Throughout this essay I tried to convince the reader by, first, establishing my own credibility with video games, then sharing my own experiences with violent games, and providing both empirical data and valuable insight from trusted sources.

The boy shows the perspective that it is possible that children his age can play these types of games. The visual appeal effectively used is pathos, and logos to grab the audience’s attention. The first appeal is shown by using emotion or pathos because this particular image can cause parents to question about their children’s interaction with violent video games. The image can cause parents to worry and be concerned about their child’s well-being and game habits. Also, the boy in the image displays that he is excited and anxious while playing this particular game. The image demonstrates logos or reason from the statistics part of this image with stated facts from CNBC of the most popular games played in

More than 30,000 people are killed by firearms each year in the US. Most of which are caused by handguns. Homicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds. Most reasons for gun violence are caused by video game influence, and issues of mental illnesses. Video games are one of the biggest causes of gun violence because of the majority of in game violence that occurs. Today’s children are more prone to violence due to video games and the violent movies, but then that leads back to the way they were raised. In today’s world, both parents work, there is no family time to teach their children the main differences between right and wrong. When most people don’t know who they are harming, it makes it a lot easier for them to cause harm.

As a hook in his article “When Life Imitates Video,” John Leo describes the Columbine High School massacre which took place near the city of Littleton, Colorado in 1999. Leo claims the actions taken by the teen shooters are due to the violent video games that* many young people play. The rest of his essay builds from this idea, arguing that violent video games desensitize players and encourages dangerous and delinquent behaviors in young children and teens. To effectively convince his target audience, those who have not yet had exposure to the idea of a connection between video games and behavior, of this idea, Leo utilizes an appeal to pathos and logos.

Video games are prevalent among impressionable children and teenagers. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the violent themes used in video games. Teenage shootings in schools have led society to question the relationship between video violence and criminal activity. After considerable research, expert opinions, and research findings, the American Psychological Association found that there is no link between gaming and criminal behavior (Casey). With this, the pursuit of video violent games continues to grow in our society. With games that show execution style murders, blood oozing from gunshot wounds, and victims moaning from wounds, it certainly is gratifying for the indulgent player. The ongoing concern about aggression and violence has once again been proven to be non-existent (Alert). My thoughts are that this cartoon like violence is appeals to the need for violence in an artificially designed environment. In this manner, violence is contained within the boundaries of fantasy. This is unlike “The Crucible” which occurs in with real people, events, and situations. Thus, directing violence in the realm of societal dysfunction that has endured with

The Writer of “When life imitates Video”, John Leo has tried to persuade his readers the reason why violent video games have negative impact on children's character. The first main goal of his article is to show the relationship between playing murderous games and violent actions. His second main goal is to make emotional appeal to parents the need to monitor their child from exposure of graphic violent medias. Most of his argument comes from his personal believe otherwise not supported by any evidence except making emotional(pathos) and logical(logos) appeal by trying to associate violence occurred in the Colorado with violent video games. To further strengthen his argument, he cited the Los-Angles Times which describe the characters children display while watching morbid video games and he tried to link the aggressive behavior modeled in the game and violent character. He assume the whole society as his audience. As he stated it, “we are now a society in which the form of play for millions of youngsters is making a large number of people die”.He succeeded in writing and informative and an emotionally appealing article with a potential of convincing his audience against violent video games.

The story line behind some violent video games includes games in which players earn points by carjacking taxis, scoring drugs from cursing thugs, and mowing down pedestrians.(see http://www.feedmag.com/vgs/duncan.html>) Some cartoonish tag lines in some sadistic video games include : -- "As easy as killing babies with axes" and "More fun than killing your neighbour's cats". This kind of themes definitely influence the players, especially the younger ones, and inflict violent tendencies on them. It is no wonder, that this killing mania in violent games was seen to seep out into the actual world when a high school junior opened fire in his school cafetaria in Littleton, Colorado, killing two of his classmates. The gunman was reported to be an ardent fan of Quake and Doom, some rather violent video games. More proof of the relationship between video games and violence is revealed by a study which clearly reveals how this kind of entertainment affects our lives. Greater details of the history of how high school students turned gunmen in Columbine High School are given, which shows that the effect of video games in their lives was a major source of influence in doing what they did best.

The article, “The Truth About Video Games and Gun Violence” by Erik Kain discusses how video games and gun violence correlates. The author opens up with someone by the name of Aaron Alexis who resorted to gun violence while playing video games that contained violence. There is a violent video game that scares parents and behavioral experts. There has been a debate on whether people who play video games later have violent behavior. Throughout the years, video games continue to show images portraying violence.

As the level of violence in video games increases, so does the level of concern for those who play them. Some people are quick to blame school shootings on games just because the kid played a “violent” game. “The topic of videogames and violence can be compared to the chicken or the egg question, which came first, violent games or violent behavior”(Violence and Videogames). However most kids in mass shootings tend to have easy access to guns and are mentally unstable.

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,

Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increase in bullying and violence towards women, thus making many consider that games creates criminals. Steven Kirsh, author of the article “Seeing The World Through Mortal Combat Colored Glasses: Violent Video Games and Hostile Attribution Bias” believes that these types of video games desensitize players to violence, reward them for performing violence, and teaches the youth that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts. Due to the graphic nature of violent video games, researchers have maintained a focus on them as a possible source of aggression. Video games advocates

My visual argument is we have a one bit comic strip showing a juxtaposition of real life violence and video games. on the left half of the comic strip there are parents watching the news stating “Guns cause all of the trouble!” and their child behind them is playing a video game, which shows what looks to be a soldier firing a gun, stating “Kill them! Kill them all!!”. The comic strips is on the side of the video game violence that says violence in video games cause people to be more violent behavior. This is shown to the comic because it tries to show parallel between the gun problems on the news and violence in videogames. Inside the comic strip there is a hidden meaning in which is that as the parents are complaining about the violence on

A video game is “an electronic game in which players control images on a television or computer screen” (Merriam-Webster). Video games have been entertaining and challenging gamers since the Game Boy to modern console games. Despite the simplicity of the definition of video games, a video game, especially ones containing violence can have a large effect on the gamer. Because of the realism and advancements in the video game industry, video games can influence the player, and can make the gamer more aggressive, even if the game is not a violent video game. Even though video games have grown in popularity over the past decade, some have not been too popular with parents, for the reason that they are too violent. Violent video games affect

After the elementary school shooting of Sandy Hook in 2012 this issue of violent video games became a hot issue calling for a connection of violence to video games. However, the final investigative report suggested that he was more a fan of nonviolent games (Ferguson, 2015). Video game violence is an issue that continues to be studied due to the inability to come to a general conclusion on whether or not the games provoke violence in connection to mass shootings. With shootings occurring and receiving mass coverage the media and public often seek a person/item to place the blame on. After the tragic events that left people dead or injured one of the topics that emerged was that of video games affects/effects on the person.

“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