The Truth about Video Games and Violent Children

Hundreds of studies have been done to determine whether violent video games will really make juveniles more violent. Randomized experiments were used in several studies to examine the short-term effect of violent video games (Anderson and Berkowitz et al. 90). In these studies, children were randomly assigned to play violent or nonviolent video games and then were observed when given an opportunity to be aggressive. The result was that children who played violent video games usually behaved aggressively.

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.

“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!

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.

There is overwhelming scientific research that suggests that playing violent video games are harmful to children and adolescents. The scientific evidence has uncovered several areas in the development of children and adolescent that are negatively impacted because of the exposure to and playing of violent video games. Some of the key areas that are negatively affected include brain activity, stress levels and behavior.

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

In this article by Roanna Cooper states that between the age group of 9-24 years of age, are making the choice to be violent in real life and trying to be more “popular”. Many researchers also researched on this particular topic and what they got out of these articles that if violent video game exposure resulted in increase in aggressive behavior over time. Results indicated that children who played more violent video games early in a school year changed to see the world in a more aggressive way and also changed to become more verbally and physically aggressive later in the school year. Changes in attitude were noticed by both peers and teachers. Dr. Olson points out that violent video games may be related to bullying, which researchers have found to be a risk factor for more serious violent behavior. Researches, for example, have found that living in a violent neighborhood and experiencing violence as a victim or witness is associated with an increased risk for violent behavior among youth.

Violent games could lead to children becoming more violent and thinking that violence in general is okay. This would be called "desensitizing". Desensitizing in this instance is defined as "make (someone) less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of cruelty, violence, or suffering by overexposure to such images". I did a project in this class about if violent video games have the ability to desensitize children, and I believe that they can desensitize children, but not all. It depends on the child. "The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression.” -American Psychological Association

The teens should not be playing these violent video games due to them being aggressive during and after play. Studies are proving teens are getting way too aggressive either at home or out in public. “”Two studies examined the relationship

Although many would believe that violent video games increase kids aggression and make them do violent acts, this is not true. There is no evidence supporting that kids will become more aggressive or do anything violent after playing violent video game. Even though many people believe that video games will cause aggression, it doesn't because there are no tests showing any behavior or aggression differences in kids and some tests even show decreased aggression after playing games.

Video games have been blamed for contributing too many acts of violence or aggression for decades, yet video games can likewise be useful for creating subjective, physical, and numerous other concealed abilities. In any case, whether video games are beneficial or not for players is still a questionable theme. Violent video games are promptly faulted by the media and a few specialists for being the motivation behind why some teenage get to be aggressive or confer great hostility in social conduct. On the other hand, numerous researchers and analysts find that video games give various accommodating advantages. They help us to treat an assortment of disorders and inabilities, including violent shooter games, may boost children's learning, health and social skills, and serve a scope of instructive capacities.

Studies have shown that people with constant exposure to violent video games have higher levels of aggression but are unsure if the video games are causing it or if the kids are playing the games because of a preexisting interest in violence. While most people consider violent video games to be dangerous because they show kids how to commit violence, I personally think the main problem is it desensitizes kids to morbidly serious things like guns and bombs. Bruce Bartholow, an associate professor of psychology at MU, says “The brains of violent video game players become less responsive to violence, and this diminished brain response predicts an increase in aggression.” However another study from Dr. Andy Przybylski at Oxford University’s Internet Institute says, “The fact that the study had not found evidence of a link between violent games and real-life aggression did not mean it does not exist but academics are divided about the possible effects.” So the link is most likely there but it has yet to be proven and differentiated from the effects of other types of video games. A big argument against this is that violent video games are extremely common and school shootings are extremely

“A long term study in the US showed no links between violence in video games and violence in kids”(Vincent). Almost all of the shooting that we see are never caused by video games. “Another study followed 302 kids for a year and found no connection between violence in videogames and violence in kids”(Barclay). As you can see there is no evidence of kids becoming violent over video games.

Today our world is surrounded by technology and new inventions that make our lives better. Some of the most popular of hobbies among children and teenagers are video games, but what many people don’t know is that they are bad for them. Violent video games in particular have been proven to not be appropriate for the age groups that play them and to have a negative effect on school, social behavior, and increase aggression.

“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