Video Games Influence Violent Behavior

Prolonged scenes of massive violence, graphic sexual content, and animated blood are examples of statements that the Entertainment Software Rating Board uses to depict the content in over fifty- five percent of the video games rated yearly. The debate of whether the aggressive nature of these video games influences youth violence in our country has been heatedly battled for decades. Since the mid 1980’s, it has been suggested that high profile cases of violence are due to an aggressor’s excessive video game use. However, much like a cold case the type of connection between video game use and youth violence remains without a definite answer. Most believe that video game use negatively influences child aggression acts in our country. Others firmly declare that video games provide a realm of opportunity for child development. Ultimately, it is impossible to say that video game use affects every child the same way. New studies suggest that video games do not affect every child that plays a game. Although violent video games are innocuous for the majority of adolescents between the ages of twelve and eighteen, the effects of these games are aggravated in those with pre- existing antisocial or depressive traits.

For many young people, violent video games that involve killing, harming, or stealing are a diverting activity that has them thinking strategically, but recent studies show that this violent game playing causes children to pick up on bad behavior. These video games increase hostility (along with anxiety and depression), teach kids wrong values, and train adolescents to take out their anger in aggression. This shouts out that role playing games with simulated violence are perilous for kids.

In today’s society there has been an ongoing debate regarding the effects of violent video games and the development of today’s youth. Many people believe that the violence in video games promotes aggression. According to Doctor Brad Bushman’s article, "Do Violent Video Games Increase Aggression?" he claims that violent video games leads to aggression because it is interactive process that teaches and rewards violent behavior. Yet others believe that this not the case. Gregg Toppo of the Scientific American, writes in his article, “Do Video Games Inspire Violent Behavior?” that video games are not a significant issue because teenagers know how differentiate between reality and fantasy. Because of the controversy surrounding this topic, I decided to research the question, “Does exposure to violent video games cause aggressive behavior among teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18?” Initially before performing any extensive research on this subject, I hypothesized that violent video games do cause aggressive behavior. I then proceeded to study different scholarly works that both supported and opposed my hypothesis. What I learned from those works eventually gave me a more complete understanding of the topic and allowed me to take a more educated stance.

Adam Lanza was a twenty-year-old individual with a dream of wanting to become a Marine. When Lanza’s mother, Nancy, told him that he couldn’t be a Marine due to him never wanting people to touch him, Lanza became even more obsessed with the military. Lanza transformed his gaming room into a replica of a military compound. By cutting paper into targets and placing them around the house, Lanza was able to practice his shooting skills with a pellet gun that he learned to shoot my playing video games. Nancy started to worry about her son’s behavior and decided to investigate on her own. Days before an unwanted historical event, she called a friend about finding pictures of bloody corpses of children under her child’s bed. Along with the gory remains,

How and why does mass media influence aggressive behavior? More specifically, does playing video games cause aggressive behavior? Because children and teenagers spend an increased amount of time each day viewing/playing video games, they are shaping their values, attitudes, and behaviors. For people who do act out aggressively, the results can be deadly. Monthly, the news is filled with blood-chilling accounts of crimes committed due to a copy-cat obsession with violent video games. This paper will present a brief review of literature and reveal the difficulties in answering this question with certainty.

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

Since we live in a technology age, technology is being formed into entertainment for people of all ages such as video games and television. Although, these forms of entertainment are a good way to stay informed, they can also be corrupting different ages Behavior differentiation has been an all-time high for children all over the U.S, and many researchers have found the reasoning to why these changes are happening. This is tied behind the non-socially acceptable behaviors to violence and type content that is put out through technological entertainment (Carnagey, N. L., Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J., 2007). Video games today are made completely different then many years ago; in today’s world you could find a gaming console in every household. Most games today try to connect you into a game mentally, which will overall try and make you a part of any type of game. The visual effects of video games unfortunately stay with a child as they grow up, children may think that what they have seen are could be perform in society. Different topics will be addressed throughout this paper such as how violence and aggression can be influential in the real world, the different effects video games can have on the brain, the negative effects of violent video games on behavior, how addiction of games can lead to other serious addictions, concerns on social development

Technology is an important aspect of change in our world. As time goes on, we are introduced to more and more technology every year, which includes media such as video games. The increase of technology has also increased and improved the world including ways of communicating and distribution of information. More often used outlets of media are those used for entertainment purposes, like television, internet and video games. The ones who are most likely to engage in these media outlets are millennials and the most recent generation Z, because they have been introduced to these outlets from a young age. In fact, a study found that children spend around 9 hours a week playing video games (Polman, de Castro, & van Aken, 2008). It is evident that video games are progressively becoming more violent in nature, and with children spending as much time as they do playing video games, there are questions that must be asked, is the violent nature of video games effecting today’s youth? And if so in what ways?

In this study, people meticulously studied other articles based on criteria they created for the research question, and conducted a trial themselves to come to a conclusion. “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.” They deemed that violent video game usage has a direct and constant relationship with all behavioral activities related to

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

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Screaming and yelling, my brother punches through his bedroom wall. It’s six in the morning and he’s screaming at my mom for doing laundry. Maybe he has anger issues? But his temper has only been this bad for a couple years now. Ever since he started playing video games, like Call of Duty. Violent video games have been a battle that my family has been fighting for a few years now. My brother, started out small, playing Nintendo games and simple games like Crash. However, my brother has always had a slight anger management problem and even with easygoing games, he became furious when he lost. Because he has lofty dreams of winning every game possible, he will not stop. Now, with video games, like Call of Duty and God of War, my brother has become even more aggressive. Freaking out whenever he lost a match. He used to be such a sweet little boy, but now he screams and disrespects my mother. Afraid to anger him, my mom does nothing. Video games have been taken away from him, but he will never be the same sweet boy that he was. Many families are fighting the same battle. Gamers like my brother would disagree that video games are the reason he is aggressive. He argues that the reason he is aggressive is because of my sisters and me, which could be a part of the reason but what have we done to make him disrespect our mother or to make him destroy his walls? Although children, adolescents, and video gamers would disagree, research has provided evidence that violent video games

Why do I think, “Violent Video Games Cannot Make People Violent”? I personally have been playing video games for many years and not once have I ever harmed anyone. I have never stabbed, shot, or even fought another living thing in my entire life. A man named, “Erik Kain” wrote an article on www.forbes.com stated that, “Anyone who has actually engaged in real violence---a fight at school, for instance---will know just how vastly different it is from the violence we experience on a screen. Real violence is frightening and overwhelming and takes control of your entire body.” This is a great example, because when engaging in a real fight unlike in video games you won't be as confident, cause if you were to lose that would be an embarrassing experience unlike

The second study discussed by Lee Suhn, Mickey & Barr, Rachel (2004), was conducted to determine the effects of violent video games on Prosocial and antisocial behavior by actually having participants play non-violent and violent video games while two appointed observers were recording information such as; the name, age, gender and ethnicity of the participant, the name of the game, level of violence, and check boxes for Prosocial and antisocial behaviors.

But not all video games are violent: in fact, video games can promote cohesion through cooperation rather than competition. Multiplayer games sometimes implement a cooperative mode enabling players to use teamwork to achieve a goal instead of contending for supremacy. This cooperative multiplayer encourages “(against the stereotype of gaming as a socially isolating action) the development of team, social,