Video Game Violence And Violent Video Games

Whether violent media content leads to real-life violence is always debatable. And in recent years, school shootings have made video games a new focus of public concern and scientific research. In public opinion, video games cause more aggression in comparison to traditional violent media contents because video games have more features of interactivity, "due to the active engagement and participation of players" (Hummer and Wang et al. 137). But more and more reports tell us that video games are not the main cause of school shooting issues; rather it is the negligence of parents, schools, and communities.

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.

Since video games have been introduced, video games have been accused of contributing too many atrocities, and acts of violence. News outlets paint video games as being a source of which some acts of violence happen. Yes, violent video games have become more popular, meanwhile becoming controversial, but still there exist no links between aggression and video games. The University of Bologna says that “owning videogames does not in fact seem to have negative effects on aggressive human behavior” (Koffler par.7). Meanwhile, news outlets keep on missing the point on how beneficial video games are. Video games do not contribute to violence, can be educational, and they can improve us in different ways.

The main argument of this article is that video games have a direct link to short term and long term aggression. The author presents this argument by providing studies from peer reviewed articles that all conclude that video games do cause an increase of aggression. The main point of this article is to answer the question, “Do violent video games lead to aggression.” The article is about the effects of violent video games leading to aggression. The author uses recent examples, like the Sandy Hook and Washington Navy Yard shooting. In both of these examples, the author cites that both shooters had a history with playing violent video games. The author uses a study which selected individuals to play violent video games for a certain period of time. The study would then compare the results to a group who played non-violent video games. The study concluded that violent video games cause a direct link in aggression due to humans reenacting the actions the characters within the video games perform.

People have been playing video games since the late 1970s, but it wasn't until 1999 that we began to question the consequences and influences associated with younger players. Karen Sternheimer's article "Do Video Games Kill" is about the controversial idea that video games are responsible for mass school shootings.

In society, video games have been criticized as an inducer for violent in children. The ongoing debate instigates research on the correlation between video games and violence. In Craig Anderson’s article, “Violent Video Games and Other Media Violence, Part II”, the author criticizes the opposing side and states that violence in media reflects violent behaviors in children. John Glynn’s article, “Guns and Games”, reasons on the benefits of video games and points out the true perpetrator for violent behaviors of youth in the United States to be the gun culture.; While Glynn’s article contains some form of pathos, there is a lack of pathos in Anderson’s. Both articles utilize logos and ethos. However, Glynn offers a more well-rounded argument to support that video games are beneficial and are not the true cause of aggression in children.

The Center for Disease Control has reported that 12 out of every 100,000, or 38,772, Americans were killed by firearm-related injuries in 2016. Approximately, 96 percent of those deaths were a result of gun violence. These numbers are up from 11 out of every 100,000, or 35,299, in 2015 and they continue to increase. My research thus far has show that the link between violent video games and gun violence in America is complex and nearly non-existent. My research question will explore the relationship between violent video games and gun violence and whether their relationship is a correlation or a causation. The resources that will support my thesis will focus on the understanding that violent video games are not a cause of gun violence and that the real issue lies elsewhere.

Violent video games have been being created since the first console. Yet only recently have we been blaming them for aggression in the player. We as humans have a tendency to blame our violent behavior on other things rather thin ourselves. Now aggression is being defined in many ways in this situation but mainly people point to the anger that’s brought out in the real world after the game or maybe it’s the gamers’ tendency to have outburst will playing the game. Both these thing show anger but do they really show that the game is what caused it. This same situation could be put in the place of me eating a potato and getting angry right after is it really the potatoes fault no.

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

The evolution of video games has taken a drastic change since the 1970’s when video games were first introduced. Since then every decade video games have become more violent in nature with strong language and realistic to suit society today. Craig Anderson states that with more violence in video games they would sell better than games with less violence (Anderson, Gentile, and Beckley pg.5). Violent video games really became popular when the first person shooter games were invented so that we could see through the eyes of the player, as if we were really experiencing it. Society wanted better graphics and games as time went on new technology was invented and society matured in electronics. This meant that for game creators would have to come up with something better selling than the last. Creators would make the games more violent and more realistic each time so that way they can keep the interest of their consumers. Each game would increase in blood or gore slowly, but what really got consumers to buy their games would be the update of graphics in the consoles or games. This is due to the drastic changing of technology and the maturing of consumers wanting better and newer violent video games. Violent video games can cause children to behave violently if not correctly supervised.

There are probably millions and billions of video games sold every year to people. Some people seem to believe that violence correlates directly with video games. Video games are something that is usually a big interest in people at the ages of 13 to 19 years old. Video games usually start off as a little fun and then turn into a major hobby for some people. Emotions change based on whatever happens while a person is engaging in these games most of the time. These games are another way to observe how people react emotionally to these games.

As video game images become increasingly more realistic and graphic. Therefore, is there any link between the violence depicted in those games and violence in real life? Students are the main group people who played violent video games very often. Also, losing a game causes many people to have a negative impact. Last, the attitudes on violent game and antisocial. Games are everywhere around us, such as cellphones, televisions, or computers, but violent games are the most popular type of game. The scene inside the game may lead to real things happen, especially for children, who are eager to experience it. Therefore, violent games may cause many impact, such as crimes, antisocial, and negative effects.

There have been a number of scientific arguments about whether the content of video games change the behavior and attitudes of a player, whether they can cause violent tendencies in a child and compel them to perform acts of tragedy. One of these such cases is Connecticut 's Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, which stirred many national debates, including the role that video games and other violent entertainment media played in the

The first experiment had participants choose to play a violent game or a neutral game. The participants also had to imagine that they performed a variety of aggressive behaviors. For each behavior, they graded its aggressiveness. To find if there is an effect on aggression after playing violent video games, the remaining participants in the study graded the behaviors, but the task was performed by another participant. This part of the experiment shows that one’s behavior while playing a video game should serve as a comparison for one’s own subsequent behavior than for another person’s behavior. Also, it pointed out that playing a violent game should lead players towards perceiving their daily life aggressive behavior as non-aggressive (Greitemeyer, 2013).

During the last decades, the popularity of violent video games has increased significantly. In the United States, more than 90% of children play video games. Surprisingly, more than 85% of video games on the market contain some sort of violence. In the late 90s, games like Doom, Mortal Kombat, and Grand Theft Auto drew everyone’s attention for the brutality and violence that these games contained. Parents, teachers, and scholars started blaming video games for school shootings, and juvenile crimes. They argued that this kind of games desensitize players, and make children believe that violence is an acceptable way to solve conflicts. Many studies have taken place surrounding this issue, however, there is still no conclusive proof that violent video games and real-life violence are linked. So the question remains, do violent video games make people violent? The goal of this paper is to attempt to bring and connect modern research on violent video games and expose if these games have an impact in the real world.