Video Games Synthesis

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.

The article, “The Truth About Video Games and Gun Violence” by Erik Kain discusses how video games and gun violence correlates. The author opens up with someone by the name of Aaron Alexis who resorted to gun violence while playing video games that contained violence. There is a violent video game that scares parents and behavioral experts. There has been a debate on whether people who play video games later have violent behavior. Throughout the years, video games continue to show images portraying violence.

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.

Moreover, many kids deal with violence and can’t control it. As a result of having issues with violence some people play video games to let their violence and anger out. People need to understand that “ [b]ut overall, violent crime is down in the US-indeed, as violent games have become more popular, violent crime has fallen." (Erik Kain 1) The more popular the game is studies show violent

Everybody in this country plays video games almost every day. It does not matter what the age is, even though they are not young and have free time they would play video games and enjoy themselves. People and society says that through video games children’s and also some adults become more aggressive and violent. Video games are contributing the act of violence all over the world and they are thinking to stop video games for their benefit. The media makes false assumptions. They are not giving details of video games and missing the benefits of the video games. According to medical daily new research indicates that certain video games actually boost the brain power and improve strategic thinking. Unfortunately, our parents and society does not approve the use of video games and it has been decried by many parents and it creates destructive garbage. It also improves the cognitive flexibility which is the mental faculty of creative and lateral thinking. According to Ericson, “Our paper shows that cognitive flexibility, a cornerstone of human intelligence, is not a static trait can be trained and improved using fun learning tools alike gaming”.(Medical Daily) This is the necessary part of our human brain and it can be achieved by video games and other fun learning activities. There are many advantages just like these from playing video games. They should also look at the benefits and not just focus on the disadvantages. It also helps from

Since violent video games, like Mortal Kombat, were created, adolescents who play these games become more aggressive than before. To me, playing violent video games is unsafe for these people since they have the negative influence on these people. I believe that researching on that topic would help us get the sense of what problems to avoid. I wish to know what are the possible effects of violent video games on adolescents’ aggression. The independent variable is violent video games, and the dependent variable is adolescents’ aggression. My hypothesis is that adolescents who play violent video games become very aggressive than those who don’t. For this essay, I would like to present the findings from each article that will answer

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.

Although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it. I am focusing on violent video games and how they affect juveniles because I feel that this issue needs to be looked at in the criminal justice community. It is an unnecessary distraction to blame the actions of a disturbed youth on a form of entertainment that has been used by millions of people without incident. A review article published in The Psychiatric Quarterly found that many studies which claim to indicate an increase in aggression due to video games are, in fact, biased! Once the bias is taken into account, the studies no longer find any correlation between youths who play violent video games and youths who

As technology advances, the more parents are worrying about their children. The internet has become essential to everyday life, but does it have an effect? Video games have become a source of entertainment for young people all around the world. Videos have been blamed for any violence in young people. Recent games are now becoming bloodier and more realistic. I believe that video games do not negatively influenced young people to be more violent in real life. Instead they develop mentally, socially and emotionally.

Video games have been argued about for decades. Some people have argued that video games are linked to violence. However, new research shows that video games can be used for therapeutic purposes, exercise, stress relievers, positive interactive learning, hand eye coordination, and different types of patient treatment for people all around the world.

Video Games have come a long way since their first introduction into the main stream. With video games becoming more sophisticated and using advanced technology, it seems as if video games are closing in on the gap between games and reality. However, as video games become ever so life-like it brings up the question of if the violence associated with video games is having a negative consequence. There have been many accusations over the years over the harm video games are causing children and teenagers. Experiments have been conducted trying to associate a link between video games and aggressive behavior. Even the media has been known to point fingers at video games for the cause of children

Video games are frowned upon by parents as time-wasters, and worse, some education experts think that these games corrupt the brain. Violent video games are easily blamed by the media and some experts as the reason why some young people become violent or commit extreme anti-social behavior. But many scientists and psychologists find that video games can actually have many benefits – the main one is making kids smart. Video games may actually teach kids high-level thinking skills that they will need in the future.

Excessive video game playing has been a problem with today’s youth they have had more influences over the youth than ever before. That brings to my attention a question, how do video games affect the youth of our society? Excessive video game playing, especially violent video games, can lead to youth violence, a decrease in academic success and many other negative things. I realize that some parents believe that they can be good for children, I agree but I also disagree in some cases. Some parents allow their children to play video games to keep a social life and to learn how to use strategies. This is true in some cases but not in all cases. For instance, other children that play video games alone and are in their rooms constantly can

“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

Most of the research done on video games tends to be done on the possible negative effects associated with the medium. From aggression and violence to the connection to mood disorders, video games tend to get a bad reputation. However, there are studies that have been done about the possible positive effects of games as well. There are definitely fewer positive studies than negative, but they are out there for those who search them out. The study that was used by Kendall Ashley in her article “How Videogames Can Help with Depression and Anxiety”, was not one of those studies.