Video Game Violence : Virtual 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.

Video games have become very influential on children and adults (Stafford, 1999). With violent video games humans are more prone to act aggressively, to have aggressive thoughts and become numb towards violence (Harding, 2009). Apart from these they are

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.

Lastly the article addresses the need for future research concerning the topic of desensitization to violence and the areas in which they feel it would be most beneficial. For instance a need to study the effects of more long term exposure to violent video games in regard to desensitization as most young game players do so on a regular basis. In their conclusion Carnagey, Ander and Bushman (2007) go as far as to refer to the media as an “effective desensitization tool.”

With the advent of violent video games, one key element which researchers explore for the impact of video games on its users is if the users become desensitized to violence. The reason why this debate is essential is because of the many games containing high contents of violence. Carnagey, Anderson, and Bushman (2007) give an operational definition of what desensitization to violence means by saying how through it one experiences an emotional-related physiological reduction to react to real violence. Thus, when one becomes exposed to real life violence or violent stimuli, one becomes less reactive, since one has already become attuned to violence. Carnagey et al. (2007) assert how if children or civilians become desensitized to violence it can bring about detrimental effects for the society. At the same time, because

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 paper discusses how violent video games affect a person's behavior and if they manifest violence and show aggression in the real world after playing such video games. I learned that not all people who are exposed to video game or media violence turn violent. I think it depends on the person if he wants to get influenced from the game, to mimic what the game shows. This is just like the next source, discussing about what kind of behavioural problems violent gaming brings about.

In a greater perspective, a 2016 study, shows that teenagers spend an average of 6.5 hours playing video games per week with 71% of all video games containing violence (Frank, paragraph 3). With young adults spending such a large amount of time per week partaking in violent video games, it's no wonder that these statistics would complement each other in the sense that repetitive exposure to violence desensitizes our youth and instills the ideal that violence is a mere normality in our world. With much of the world already being acquainted and desensitized to violence, many have no problem “paying our four or five bucks to seat themselves… in a theater showing a horror movie…daring the nightmare” (King, 1).

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 their research of violent videogames and the effect on children, they have found that “the simplistic belief that exposure to media violence will lead directly to individual violence is clearly wrong.” (Kutner, Olsen, 2008) I am going to ask you to look deeper than this. I assert that although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it.

There are indicators that links playing violent video games to increasing aggression in young people. Teenagers who are expose to violent games are more supposable to increase the likelihood of experiencing aggressive thoughts, in which turns into the likelihood of engaging in physical aggression against another person. Furthermore, violent video games produce an emotional desensitization to aggression and violence to the youth (Anderson). Based on the observation teenagers are exposed to when they are playing violent video games, they will reenact almost immediately in real life if the situational contact is sufficiently similar to the ones in the games. Therefore, consumption of violent video games produces negative behaviors that are controlled by negative

Violent video games can desensitize children. Studies show that most video games in today’s society contain some type of

According to The Entertainment Software Association (2016), a total of 23.5 billion dollars were spent in the games industry in 2015. In addition, 63% of U.S. households are home to at least one person who plays video games regularly. The industry keeps expanding and gaining popularity around the world. Action and shooting games are the most popular genre on the market (ESA, 2016). Many of these games includes violence, gore and sexuality. Even “E” rated games can provide gender discrimination, hypersexualization and violence without blood. Many youth wants to play video games because of its trend. With all the violence happening in the world like school shootings, homicides, domestic abuse. Many factors can affect these sad events such as different personality trait of the individual, different parenting style, multiple external factors, gender representation and masculine norms. A literature review was done to examine the determinants of violence and video games.

“On the other hand, considering a specific violent video game may have the reverse effect and actually reduce perceptions of negative effects if it is difficult to generate arguments for negative effects of the specific game” (Ivory, Kalyanaraman 4). Although you may believe that violent video games increase the youth violence rates, in actuality some violent video games can have separate effects on youth depending on the child for instance, one child could become more violent whereas another child will not have the urge to be violent.

Once you’re emotionally numb to violence, it’s much easier to engage in violence.” (Englander, 2003) Exposure to violence is inevitable, whether it be through the news, daily life, or first-hand accounts. However, the glorification of violence in video games is detrimental to a child’s mental state. However, there is a government system that parents can take advantage of to familiarize themselves with the violent content of video games