The Relationship between Video Games and Youth Violence

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.

Moreover, many kids deal with violence and can’t control it. As a result of having issues with violence some people play video games to let their violence and anger out. People need to understand that “ [b]ut overall, violent crime is down in the US-indeed, as violent games have become more popular, violent crime has fallen." (Erik Kain 1) The more popular the game is studies show violent

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)

Over the past few centuries,video games have become a great leisure and hobby among kids of all ages and cultures. With the advancement of technology, video games have advanced highly in its realism and genres. This high type of advancement brought the video game industry to a multi-billion dollar industry. However, with realism, comes negative effects as well. Ever since the creation of violent or “mature” video games, there has been a constant debate on whether it will increase violence in the player. Although, not all video games are violent, and just increase skills in a player such as hand-eye coordination. Nevertheless, there is research going on for the link between violent video games and youth violence. The question is which event happens first in the sequence, do violent video games aggravate a person’s violent behavior, or does a person get rid of their anger through playing violent video games? Either way, violent video games are not beneficial to our society.

Video games have come a long way since the days of Pong. Advances in technology have allowed games to present state of the art graphics and surreal like qualities to its consumers; from four star simulated battle scenes to enhanced real live fire shoot outs. With all these innovations added to violent video games it attracted the visual needs of our teenage youth. Although video game violence has been blamed for high profile school shootings, video games and its creators should not be held accountable for these tragedies because there is not enough credible evidence to absolutely link video games to outburst of violence amongst juveniles.

There is a large amount of research by many respected academics that show the correlation between video game violence and real life violence (Bartholow, B.D., Sestir, M.A., Davis, E.B., 2005). However, that does not mean video game violence is the cause of real life violence. As other studies by equally respected academics show, people that are already predisposed to violence tend to gravitate towards playing video games (Delamere, F.M., 2005). There is no proven causal conclusion to be drawn from all the research done on this subject; although, the writer tries to draw his own conclusion: "I believe that [violent video games, music and movies] do the total opposite and allow us to vent some of the built up anger we have that leads to violence." If only he provided some kind of concrete evidence to prove his point, it would sound much more credible.

“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!

Although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it. I am focusing on violent video games and how they affect juveniles because I feel that this issue needs to be looked at in the criminal justice community. It is an unnecessary distraction to blame the actions of a disturbed youth on a form of entertainment that has been used by millions of people without incident. A review article published in The Psychiatric Quarterly found that many studies which claim to indicate an increase in aggression due to video games are, in fact, biased! Once the bias is taken into account, the studies no longer find any correlation between youths who play violent video games and youths who

Violent video games are contributing to violent behaviors in the youth and teenagers of America. Youth violence is a seemingly increasing problem in the United States. Juvenile centers are gaining new residents each day.This violence is brought on by an increase in video game violence. Many of the newly developed games are killing simulators which train players for real world violence. There seems to be a lack in evidence against video games. “According to the federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low” (Jenkins 32). So called links between video games and youth violence are said to be found, but these links are coming from people who solely research media violence.

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

“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

Even though many studies have found that there is a remarkable relationship between violent video games and aggressive behavior, more recent studies have shown that this relationship is almost insignificant. In an article published by CNN called “Do video games lead to violence?” by Susan Scutti, connects relevant data to demonstrate if there is a link between aggressive behavior and video games. According to Whitney DeCamp, associate professor of sociology at

Who here has ever played video games? Who here has ever played Grand Theft Auto? Who has played Call of Duty: Black Ops? Who has played Far Cry? Who has played Halo? These are some of the most popular video games known today, that happen to be some of the most violent video games in today’s society. Video games have been around and becoming more and more popular since the 1950’s decade. Playing these violent video games can cause many problems, which bring me to my claim being, playing violent video games can lead to violent behavior in all age groups. Over the course of this speech I will first discuss how playing violent video games leads to violent and abusive behavior. Next I will discuss how playing violent video games can lead to antisocial behavior. Finally, I will conclude my speech by discussing how playing violent video games can lead to people committing crimes.

As we all know, video games have been blowing up since the first Super Mario Bros games by Shigeru Miyamoto in the mid 1980’s. But that is not the first game ever to release; it was actually a very simple tennis game during the time of 1964. Although back in the 60’s there wasn’t video games that included violence now that is the only “Cool” games to play during this era. I would like to know why children and teenagers only want to play violent video games that involve murder, profanity, and plenty of disrespect towards other characters. Therefore, my question is, do video games influence children and teenagers to use violence in their lives?

These worried adults have found that children who play these violent games have shown signs of increased aggression, but not necessarily an increase in crime. In a recent APA study violent video games were proven to be a risk factor for violence which could lead to crime. As a result, video game players have jumped to defend these violent games.("Violent Video Games Create Aggression,