Video Games and 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.

Content analyses show that 89% of video games have some violent content. Half of the video games on the market have extreme violent actions toward other characters. Games, today, are allowing players to not only connect with the game physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. In essence, the player becomes the character. According to Nielson Media Research, at least 45 million households in the United States have at least one video game console (Markey & Charlotte, 2010). The average age of video game players has increased to age 34, and 60% of Americans play interactive games on a regular basis. However, researchers believe that younger children are more susceptible to the negative effects of playing violent video games compared to older teenagers and adults. Furthermore, games that include violence have raised serious concerns among

As many as 97% of US kids age 12-17 play video games, contributing to the $21.53 billion domestic video game industry. More than 50% of games have violence. (Procon.org) Video games that have violence have been blamed to have caused bullying, mass shootings, and violence towards women. (Procon.org) An estimated four out of five US households with a male child own a video game system and worldwide series of video games are predicted to reach $102.9 billion in 2017. (Procon.org) Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence and it rewards players for simulating violence . (Procon.org)

Does playing a video game make you prone to commit real-life violence? This question has been an issue since the very early 90's when violent games like Doom and Wolfenstein were released, but only in the last half a decade or so (mainly since the incident at Columbine, Colorado, 1999 – when it was revealed that the teenage shooters were avid video game players) has it really come to the majority's attention. The key issue that both sides can't agree on is whether people should be allowed to play violent games or not. I think both sides agree that extremely violent video games should not be played by young children, who have a harder time separating reality from fiction; also, the media does indeed only report one side of the

For many years, there have been arguments over violent video games and their harmful effects. The standards for violence in today’s society are different than when video games were first introduced. A person’s personality plays into how they are effected by violence. In an article written for the American Psychological Association, Patrick Markey determined, “certain combinations of personality traits can help predict which young people will be more adversely affected by violent video games.” He also stated “those who are negatively affected have pre-existing dispositions, which make them susceptible to such violent media.” (APA).

“97% of US kids between the age 12-17 play video games...more than half of 50-Top-Selling video games contain violence” (Guardian US interactive team). Video games are present in almost every home around the world, their commercialization and popularity are increasing abruptly, reaching in hands of a lot of teens who can spend hours and hours just playing them. Because of the huge demand that video games have, their creators are in the necessity to make them more attracting, to increase their sales, and give more satisfaction to their consumers, in this case the majority young people. However violent video games have been blamed to be a very influential factor in child development, contributing to youth violence. In other hand different organizations and personalities had different opinions about it, arguing that violent video games had no link with social violence.

The issue of video game violence seems to be a hot topic right now after several shootings have occurred and made a connection to the shooters being video gamers. In looking at past research it is apparent that there seems to large amounts of research that contradict one work to another. Although I would have been interested in conducting a poll of the publics opinion regarding the use of violent video games and their connection to mass shootings I was not able to conduct the research. However, for this paper I chose to conduct a literature analysis to see what research has been conducted and to seek out gaps and themes in this research.

Video games and real violence, is there a relationship? Just take a minute and think about the question. According to HealthLine news 91% of kids play video games and 90% of these video games are violent video games. So one would automatically assume video games promote real violence. I believe this is not true and through expert analysis and through my own experience I will not only show but, prove that video games do not promote violence.

There are volumes of media that are starting to harm the world in which we live. They have been linked to fourteen mass murders (Fletcher). Nine out of the top ten selling games have been labeled as violent and 42% of adolescents play them (“Children and Video Games”). These violent video games are a major problem in the United States and across the globe. Violent video games have a direct correlation with negative behaviors because they increase anger and aggression in young people, decrease prosocial behavior, and have unfavorable effects on a teens daily life.

Hamilton-Giachritsis (2005), Erwin and Morton (2008), Gentile and Stone (2005), and Jason et al. (2005) revealed a correlation between violent video games with immediate and later aggressive behavior. All of the research for the effects of violent videos games are conducted on older children and current research has not yet studied young children or preschoolers. It is important to note what research exclaims about the long-term effects violent video games can have on children later in life during adolescence (Anderson et al., 2008; Gentile & Stone, 2005; Kirkorian, Wartella, & Anderson, 2008). Anderson et al. (2008) and Gentile (2014) reported, 90% of American

Violence now of days is honored, glorified, and yet celebrated in mass media and motions to society that violence is normal, glamorous, and widespread in our culture (Caron, 113). Violence is not only present in television shows and movies, but also in other forms such as cartoons, and video games (Caron, 121). Children are playing more and more violent video games at younger ages because the parents are not paying enough attention to what is going on in their child’s life.

Violent games are often played by kids, and kids are the main group of people who have desire to win. So, this mentality causes them get more and more angry, which may directly led to crimes. It is easy to have a casual effect after losing a game. That could makes people want to play another round, until they addicted into games. Children are still growing, and they start another game because they lose the last game, and this cycle will make the children more addictive. If games play more, they will feel immersive, it will give people a fake impression, and will affect the children 's growth. Also it influencing people’s time, this may cause children have less time to feel our planet, the outside world. Some of them are limited by violent video games, because they already addicted by those games. Secondly, violent behavior in reality is often caused by violent video games. People who likes to play violent video games are easy to get confused about reality and virtual. People are very focus when they play games, games could let people feels they are the character in the game. It could make people get angry, and once they finished their game, back to reality, they also may still think about the game, and want to have a chance to experience it, whether the result is as same as the game or not, and this could lead them to have a strong violent behavior in reality. Violent video games may change

The promotion of violence by today’s media, especially video games, has caused violence and aggression in reality to become a major concern. As gaming graphics and special effects are becoming more realistic, this portrayal of violence is one of the many important concerns in society. These days, a person can pick up a controller, move a joystick around, press a few buttons, and totally devastate an entire city. The recent uproar about this kind of entertainment is based on the debate of whether or not violence is affecting children who spend countless hours playing violent video games. Some people claim that the violence in the media has influenced horrible acts, such as many

“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

Newton N. Minow once said, “Children will watch anything, and when a broadcaster uses crime and violence and other shoddy devices to monopolize a child’s attention, it’s worse than taking candy from a baby. It is taking precious time from the process of growing up”.The media is a powerful tool that in a very influence on children. There are many things that the youth in today 's society is learning from the media, for example, violence. There are different forms of media violence that children are exposed to. Some form of these violent medias is video games, television, music, movies and much more. The most effective form of media that children are exposed to are video games. Although video games have been around for 30 plus years, it has become a big part of our culture in America. There are different varieties of video games, such as action, adventure, fighting, sports, shooting, violent, non-violent and much more. In the united states almost 97% of the youth plays video games, and a majority of them spend at least seven to eight hours a day playing these games a day. This large percentage brings almost 12 billion dollars a year to the video game industry, and the long hours of playing these violent games increase in the aggressive behavior that children form. Studies have stated that 90% of pediatricians and 67 % of parents agreed that violent video games