Essay on Videogames Don?t Kill People, People Kill People

Hundreds of studies have been done to determine whether violent video games will really make juveniles more violent. Randomized experiments were used in several studies to examine the short-term effect of violent video games (Anderson and Berkowitz et al. 90). In these studies, children were randomly assigned to play violent or nonviolent video games and then were observed when given an opportunity to be aggressive. The result was that children who played violent video games usually behaved aggressively.

For example violent video games allow players to unleash any type of anger they have onto the game instead of acting out aggressively in the real world. A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that teenagers, especially boys, play video games as a way to control themselves when it comes to their emotions. 61.9% of the boys who were studied said they played to help them relax, ' 47.8% because 'it helped them forget their problems, ' and 45.4%p played because it helped them get their anger out. Teenagers can use these games to experience fantasies of power and fame, to explore what they accept as exciting and realistic environments to work through angry feelings or relieve stress. The games can serve as a substitute for actually rough and aggressive play. Also many studies fail to look for other factors that can contribute to why teenagers are aggressive, such as family history and mental health, plus most studies do not follow children over long periods of time. Video game experiments usually just have people playing a game for a few minutes, which is not how games are played in real life. Most teens end up playing their games for hours. What is not addressed in most studies that are against video game violence is the majority of well-adjusted teenagers who are also playing those same games, and are showing no signs of any kind of aggressive

The most extensive argument many have argued toward violent video games affecting one’s behavior can simply be described as that many shooters were fans of violent video games before committing the shootings. A common example people making this argument raise are the Columbine shooters, who were big fans of the video game Doom. While many believe that Doom’s excessive gore and violence led the two teens to perpetrate the mass shooting, that is not the case. What those who argue against video games fail to realize that those who commit these crimes had a history of other conditions. After many mass shootings, researchers often discovered in autopsies that the suspect had a long history of aggression or mental health problems that gaming was not responsible for. Patrick Markey and Christopher J. Ferguson, writers for US News, wrote

A secure link between violent video games and violent behaviors has not yet been proven. Studies have shown numerous design flaws and have used unreliable sources such as noise blast tests to test their theory. Aforementioned only one-eighth of attackers have exhibited interests in video games. A report has not yet been proven to link violent video games with violent behaviors in school shootings but show that behavioral problems come from violent movies and other resources.

“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!

Video games have become a major occupation of majority of the youth these days. They spend hours on end concentrating on video games, some of which are apparently very violent, yet this is actually the whole idea. Coming from the horse's mouth is an argument in support of video games coined from a video programmer's point of view, stating that violent video games allow people to do what they can not do in reality- virtual reality. ( http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-15/roc15-08.htm ) For instance, someone said to be having a bad day could use a violent video game to release stress by shooting down a couple hundred bad men than actually taking an AK-47 and spilling down a few brains down the

Tragedies like Newton has caused many well known people or celebrities to give in their input to why violence learned by video games should be stopped or better regulated. People like Donald Trump, Ralph Nader, and Wayne LaPierre claim that video games and violence are linked and can be seen throughout society. The government has proposed alternatives to diminishing consumption so that violence might decrease in our society, but with this they also want to understand the influence violent video games have on today’s youth.

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.

Unsworth basically shows that playing violent video games more likely affects adolescents to become very aggressive. The experiment was done on participants by measuring their anger before, during and after their game play of violent game, Quake II, and having them to fill out the questionnaire that determines their state of angers. The table categorizes the participants in terms of their change in the level of aggressiveness throughout the experiment. According to the data, she found that all participants’ anger ratings vary; some participants’ aggressiveness increases and some decreases while others don’t show any change. According to the article, overall, she concludes that:

game.” If the child’s aggression is increased by the violence in these games, then his or

However, a study was done by the Ohio State University recently to see if playing brutal video games makes you more aggressive and in turn more violent . One of these groups of test subjects would play non-violent games such as S3K Superbike, Dirt 2 and Pure and at the same time another group would be playing the deemed to be violent video games such as Condemned 2, Call of Duty 4 and The Club. After they had played these games for 20 minuets they were asked to write an ending for a random story. For example, a driver crashed into the main characters car and they had to decide what happened next. This happened for a few days before they were asked to play, what they believed

With the popularity and production of video games constantly rising since the mid 90s, you would also imagine that the violent and illegal acts in teens would have also risen, but that is not the case. In fact, violent acts in youth have steadily decreased during the past 20 years, and are projected to continue to fall. While there could be many reasons for this drop in violence, the most likely one is that the inclusion of violence in video games actually provides an outlet for frustrated and angry teens to safely discharge their anger in the digital world, and not upon anyone in the real world. Video games offer an area in which your mind can explore and wander with no fear of consequences, so in

Over the years, the popularity of computer and video games has grown. Specifically violent video games make up more than 50 % of the top selling games. These games include violent themes that involve guns, crime, blood, and gore. There is an ongoing belief that these types of games are to blame for the many acts of violence in society and have encouraged America’s youth to act out in aggression. Several organizations, such as the PTC (Parents Television Council) have moved to discourage the development of violent games while also pushing for stronger regulations when purchasing such games. There is also debate among parents and concerns on how games can negatively influence their children. So is there a direct link between video games and violence? The truth is video games do not encourage violence in society based on several factors which include scientific studies, statistics on crime, and prevention measures adopted by game publishers.

“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

A major opposition to violence video games leading to aggression is that the research that was done is not a valid research. Henry Jenkins said “...most of those studies are inconclusive and many have been criticized on methodological grounds” (2). The studies are not inconclusive because in the studies that the researchers do they