Video Games Scapegoat

Many of the young people of today’s generation have played video games; whether it is Candy Crush, Flappy Bird, Mario, Sonic, Call of Duty, Minecraft, or Skyrim. Almost every electronic device is capable of running games. As advancement in technology increases, the video game industry will also advance. More and more of the next generations are bound to be affiliated with video games. There is a debate whether video games cause people to be violent, especially in adolescents. Do video games really cause violence? There have been many researches done to come to a conclusion to this question. Not only did Armadi Tansal write an essay to help answer this question, but there has been an online

Rashawn Blanchard states that “when it truly comes down to it, it would be ludicrous to place the blame of violent, unforgivable actions upon a popular form of entertainment. If it were any bit true then the United States alone would have somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter of its population teetering on the edge of violent explosion from a few hours with Grand Theft Auto III.” Kids play video games all the time. I know I did as a child. It never made me anymore, or any less violent then I already was. Based on the sheer numbers of video games sold, and the highly possibility that most kids have at least one violent game in the home, the united states should be seeing a HUGE increase in school shootings on a daily basis, not just a yearly one. He isn’t bias in his approach though, noting that “video games have long since been defined as a form of entertainment and it would be foolish not to acknowledge the fact that entertainment does influence people, especially children. In the 90's and even still to a degree today, elementary school children can be seen practicing their karate kicks even though they've had no martial arts training. This could be contributed to the amount of live-action costume super heroes that had taken over Saturday morning children's lineups, namely

Parents around the world are blaming video games for their children's violence. Lets talk about that, firstly, you don’t see kids running around the world with guns pretending they're playing “Call of Duty” or anything. Yes there are school shootings once in a while, that doesn’t mean “Oh man, Video games are to blame” the number one cause of shootings is bullying or getting revenge on the bully himself.

In many shootings or children with aggressive behavior, people have used violent video games to blame as the source for their outcomes as their main problem because video games that contain graphic violence make it an easy target for people to blame bad behavior on. In life, there are always many different forms of violence; in sports, movies, school, conversations, and radio. So why are so many people blaming video games for the cause of criminal violence? Kristin Bezio explains why in his article “Stop Blaming Video Games for America’s Gun Violence” for the reason we reject video games, “It's a phenomenon known as "cultural lag," and it's what causes us to be hesitant in adopting new technologies, trying new fads, and changing our social

“Approximately 90 percent of kids in the U.S. play video games, and more than 90 percent of those games involve mature content that includes violence.”-(Time Health). The link between violent media and aggression in video games has also created a spawn of research studies that has gone back and forth on the issue of whether

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.

Americans have been blaming violent forms of entertainment since colonial times. From dime novels to music, to movies to television shows. The most recent medium are video games. Aided by crime-saturated news reports, a lot of people are convinced that video game violence transfers to real-life youth crimes like the school massacres. They think that violent video games make people violent, but that is not the case. Violent people play violent video games. Not everyone who plays video games are violent, but those who already are violent will play them as an outlet for their frustration and rage. If anything, video games keep violent people from going out and killing people in real life because they can vent in the virtual world.

If there were no violent video games, would it just be that people turn to other entertainment mediums such as movies and still cause these brutal outbursts. They are a runaway train heading on a course of utter brutality and destruction. A study was published in the United States showing that only 12% of people in a school of misbehaved pupils causing or taking part in aggressive behaviour had an interest in violent video games while 37% “exhibited an interest in their own writings, such as poems, essays or journal entries”. In addition to this, the idea of using different media sources as a scapegoat is not new. In the 1950’s comic books were blamed for violence and that was verified not to be the case. So it is the same story just a different media getting blamed.

Do modern video games contribute to the increasing level of violence that we see around us? Can we really attribute the shootings and bombings we see on the news to the increased violence and realism of video games? Every day, people are exposed to violence through the TV shows and movies they watch, the video games they play, and national media networks who bombard us with graphic information portraying violent and hard-hitting global events. To top it all off, the media frequently loves to make outrageous claims that video games either “inspired” or “trained” the culprits of many of these violent acts. In the article “Are Violent Video Games Harmful?,” Guy Porter and Vladan Starcevic claim that “while playing video games outwardly

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?

From character to character, the brutal kills range from ripping out spines to slicing the opponents straight in half to chopping off foe's arms. They were all just obeying the thunderous voice rumbling, "Finish him!" This is Mortal Kombat – one of, if not the, most popular fighting game franchises ever created. At its conception in 1992, it was hit with a hard wall of controversy for its heavy use of gore and the general fear it would influence children to reenact these so-called “fatalities” in real life. Ever since the 1970s, man was finally able to interact with the screen, creating a universe written in ones and zeros. However, does the screen speak back to us, and cause effects outside of the console? Though video games have widely

Are violent video games directly correlated to teen violence? This is the burning question many researchers are dedicated to answering. The common form of the question is “Is the increase in violence in games creating killer kids?” The simple answer is no. Instead the opposite has occurred, as games became more violent, the players became calmer. The games create a “safe” outlet for any anger or angst that young people possess. Crime rates in the teen population have lowered and violent teens admit to having little to no interest in violent video games. The games that most people fear are destroying the youth may actually be one of the things helping them grow and become “normal” members in society.

“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!

For decades, the media has been accused of being a bad influence on the nation's children. Everyone has heard stories of little kids jumping off of their decks and hurting themselves after viewing the old black and white episodes of Superman. Years later, and there could possibly be a link between kids playing video games and those same kids later murdering their fellow classmates. Possible links such as this one continue to fuel the research supporting the idea that video game violence increases aggression in children.

According to Forbes, video games author and political blogger Eric Kain, “More than half of mass shooters over the last 30 years had mental-health problems” (Kain). He also imparted that “people between ages 18 and 25 also tend to report the highest rates of mental-health issues” (Kain). In most cases, it is not the video games that culprits played to cause their violent behaviors, but rather their mental condition. For the rest of the cases, however, the quick condemnation on video games possessed other factors that contributed to violence. Author Karen Sternheimer detailed, “Poverty, neighborhood instability, unemployment, and even family violence fall by the wayside in most of these studies” (Sternheimer). Seldom do cases truly narrow causes down to video games, if any at all. While it is easy to accuse, we shouldn’t be quick to blame video games for offenders who indulged in them and later exhibited violence when a myriad of other plausible causes exist as well. Video games may appear to be the easiest explanation for violence, but are we answering the correct question with it? Is it possible that we are only using video games because it is the quickest solution for a much broader social complication? Morality says no: violent video games portray felonious acts and brutality, so it is obvious that those who play it are more likely to manifest