School shooting have rocked the nation in the past decade, school bullying and now, cyber bullying are also seem to be on the rise. Across the nation more and more people are becoming victims of the people committing these wicked acts. Citizens and congressman are frantecly looking for someone or something to blame. Politicians and its voters don’t always seem to agree on much but both managed to agree that violent video games are at least partially to blame. However this is not the Salem witch trails, we need proof before we as a nation take any drastic action. So, is there any scientific proof that exhibits a link between acts of violence and playing violent video games? In this essay we will analyze arguments and research of people against and for this argument. Today about 97% of teenagers play or have played video games wether it be Sniper Elite Nazi Zombie Army on a console such as Xbox 360 or farmville on Facebook. About 70% of those who play vidoe games also play gaems rated M for mature, these games are intented for a mature audience and usually have a minumum age rstriction of 17 years of age(Lenhart 1). Right off the bat you can see why there is such a tremendous concern on wether or not games can cause people to act violently. Were talking about 7 out of every 10 kids being potentially at risk. That is why it is so important that scientific research to be done. However up in till recently very little research has been done to show siginificant data to fully
Whether violent media content leads to real-life violence is always debatable. And in recent years, school shootings have made video games a new focus of public concern and scientific research. In public opinion, video games cause more aggression in comparison to traditional violent media contents because video games have more features of interactivity, "due to the active engagement and participation of players" (Hummer and Wang et al. 137). But more and more reports tell us that video games are not the main cause of school shooting issues; rather it is the negligence of parents, schools, and communities.
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
One of the biggest controversial cases among parents and children is, whether to allow them to play violent video games. Many people often assume that these intense games have a direct correlation to becoming a violent person. While many people agree with this, the research is not 100% accurate. This makes it very hard to find proof that a violent video game is one of the leading causes of a violent person. We are often blaming these games for a more internal complex problem.
In my most recent essay I wrote of the violence attributed to video games in light of various shootings and other tragedies that occurred in the past year or so. In this essay I argued that despite their violent content, video games are not completely to blame for acts of violence committed by children. Throughout this essay I tried to convince the reader by, first, establishing my own credibility with video games, then sharing my own experiences with violent games, and providing both empirical data and valuable insight from trusted sources.
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.
The main argument of this article is that video games have a direct link to short term and long term aggression. The author presents this argument by providing studies from peer reviewed articles that all conclude that video games do cause an increase of aggression. The main point of this article is to answer the question, “Do violent video games lead to aggression.” The article is about the effects of violent video games leading to aggression. The author uses recent examples, like the Sandy Hook and Washington Navy Yard shooting. In both of these examples, the author cites that both shooters had a history with playing violent video games. The author uses a study which selected individuals to play violent video games for a certain period of time. The study would then compare the results to a group who played non-violent video games. The study concluded that violent video games cause a direct link in aggression due to humans reenacting the actions the characters within the video games perform.
97% of teens ages 12-17 play video games today. They contribute to the growing industry of video games which is now at $21.53 billion (ProCon.org). In your life you have most likely played some type of video game, such as a game on your phone or on your computer. Did that game make you feel like you wanted to cause violence? Violent video games do not cause mass shootings, it allows kids to relieve their stress, and it is the competitive nature, not the violence in video games.
Video games have come a long way since the days of Pong. Advances in technology have allowed games to present state of the art graphics and surreal like qualities to its consumers; from four star simulated battle scenes to enhanced real live fire shoot outs. With all these innovations added to violent video games it attracted the visual needs of our teenage youth. Although video game violence has been blamed for high profile school shootings, video games and its creators should not be held accountable for these tragedies because there is not enough credible evidence to absolutely link video games to outburst of violence amongst juveniles.
Over the past few years, the United States has seen violence that has come from the inside of the country. Various high schools, have had shootings inside of them from some of the high school students that go to that specific school. Some experts blame the shootings by categorizing the students as someone who has been tormented and bullied basically most of life, while other experts believe the shootings were caused by the violence in video games. There has been a lot of nation-wide discussion about if violent video games really do cause violence and aggression in young gamers ever since shootings at high schools increased. However evidence has shown differently than what most experts think. Violent video games do not cause violence and aggression in young gamers.
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
It is agreeable that there are some correlation between teenagers playing video games and how it affects the youth mentally. Heavy consumption of violence video games does indeed stimulate a change reaction in the brain waves, but there is no hard evidence stating that those changes causes teenagers to act aggressively and violently. On the contrary, it is a popular beliefs that violence video games does indeed causes teenagers to displayed unpleasant behaviors and actions because that is what they learned and observed from the games. Therefore, parents should limit and regulate the amount of time their teenagers are playing violence video games so that they can protect their children from negative behaviors.
Children who play violent video games are often aggressive as shown by Carll and Elizabeth K.’s research has shown. After a young adult, Adam Lanza, had played School shooting, which as the name suggests you shoot students, went to a school and killed 26 students and staff members in total. As well Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who shoot kids and staff in Columbine high school were found playing Doom a violent game which in it you kill a lot of monsters. Video Games make people have worse relationships with people. This was all found in Opposing Viewpoints in Context, “Video Games”, “Video Games Prohibit Antisocial Behaviors”, “Violence in Video Games and Other Media Can Cause School Shootings”, and “Violence in Video Games is a serious problem”.
Violent video games are contributing to violent behaviors in the youth and teenagers of America. Youth violence is a seemingly increasing problem in the United States. Juvenile centers are gaining new residents each day.This violence is brought on by an increase in video game violence. Many of the newly developed games are killing simulators which train players for real world violence. There seems to be a lack in evidence against video games. “According to the federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low” (Jenkins 32). So called links between video games and youth violence are said to be found, but these links are coming from people who solely research media violence.
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
Findings supporting these claims also show that with an increase in violence comes other negative health risks such as an increased likelihood of substance abuse, sexual activity, and obesity(Denniston, Swahn, Feldman, and Romero). Media use, and subsequent exposure to violent content is extremely prevalent among 8 to 18 year old children who spend, on average, 7.4 hours a day using media or computers and 80% of teens have some type of gaming console(Denniston, Swahn, Feldman, and Romero) These claims and the amount of media children are exposed to were concerning enough that the American Academy of Pediatrics started making advisory statements about violent video games and media being health risks for children in 2001. (Hall, Day, and Hall) Since then the link between violent games and violent behavior in youths has been researched across many “population groups”(Denniston, Swahn, Feldman, and Romero). The second theory revolves around any positive effects that might be gained from playing these games (Hall, Day, and Hall). Stating that these may offer “safe” outlets for negative emotions and thusly allowing players to be more emotionally balanced. (Hall, Day, and Hall)