Violent Video Games Contribution To Adolescences’ Behavior

Title: Does playing violent video games affect the structure and functioning of the adolescent brain?

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.

This reckless driving--113 m.p.h--was a surprise and frustration for the author because his son was reasonable, measured, and mostly repentant after the incident; his son’s only qualm was that he shouldn’t have been cited for reckless driving because he was incredibly focused and thoughtful about where and when he was speeding. This odd paradox was frustrating to the author because he simply couldn’t understand his son’s thinking.

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.

“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!

Violent video games are blamed for causing violence, aggressive behaviors, crimes, bullying, fighting, and school shootings. The media portrays video games as a tool that influence children and teenagers to commit violent acts. During the Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association case, the United States Supreme Court ruled the rejection of banning video games in California because studies have not proven the violence caused by video games. Statistics have shown the decrease in juvenile crime rates and increase in violent video game sales. Studies conducted by medical professionals have also proven that video games do not cause violence but rather increase moral sensitivity, prosocial behavior, and moral compass for children and teenagers. Video games do not cause violence because there is no evidence that suggests that video games cause violent behavior in children and teenagers.

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?

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.

A video game is “an electronic game in which players control images on a television or computer screen” (Merriam-Webster). Video games have been entertaining and challenging gamers since the Game Boy to modern console games. Despite the simplicity of the definition of video games, a video game, especially ones containing violence can have a large effect on the gamer. Because of the realism and advancements in the video game industry, video games can influence the player, and can make the gamer more aggressive, even if the game is not a violent video game. Even though video games have grown in popularity over the past decade, some have not been too popular with parents, for the reason that they are too violent. Violent video games affect

It was Christmas Day and Savanna’s nine year old brother had just received a new game that he had been wanting for his X-Box, “Grand Theft Auto.” As soon as he opened it, he began to play. Three hours later he was STILL playing. Savanna was sitting on the couch reading a new book, when she started to notice some frustration coming from her brother. As he sprung up off the floor, he let out a yell of anger, went over to the living room wall, and punched it, leaving a hole in the wall. Savanna wondered if this violent reaction was because of the violence he had been seeing in the video game. A review of almost a decade of studies found that exposure to violent video games was a “risk factor,” for increased violence in youth.(Radowitz) From

Many parents in today’s society are adamant about their teenagers refraining from playing violent video games. Specifically, parents worry about their children playing mature-rated video games that feature blood, gore, vulgar language, use of drugs, and intense violence. Quite a few of these parents believe that their children can be heavily influenced by these brutal video games, which will in turn raise their teenagers to become violent, aggressive, and criminal minded individuals. In hindsight, these parents have good reason to protect their offspring from being mentally harmed by what they interact with. This idea that parents believe that their children will develop criminal behavior and become violent individuals is actually a common misconception that many parents hold to be true. In fact, there have been studies that have shown the benefits of youth playing these violent video games and how it positively affects their mental skills and brain development.

One of the hottest issues in the media in the past decade is violence in video games and how violent video games influence aggressive and violent behavior in children and adolescents. Some psychologists believe violent video games influence violent behavior in children through social learning and modeling behaviors after characters in video games that “glorify” violence and criminals (Schultz & Schultz, 2013, p. 331). Other psychologists argue that other factors, such as poor socioeconomic status and negligent parents, are the main factors of violence in children and adolescents instead of video games. However, many studies have found varying levels of correlation between video games and violence in adolescents and children, and no study has found violent video games to be the cause of violent behavior.

Even federal government research has failed to find a statistically significant correlation between increased aggression and violence in video games.

Imagine this you’re a parent reading quietly in a room, then you hear shouting and stop coming from your child’s room. You normally well behaved child is screaming and shouting after losing a games in call of duty, and you are wondering why he is acting like this. What you might not realize is that it could be the violent video game affecting his behavior. The effects of violent video games in youth have devastating effects on them. These effects can range from violent behavior to acting out in school, and even possibly maybe even crime. The games you kids play could be more violent then you even know. Call of Duty, one of the leading first person shooter games, is all about war, and killing the enemy. Grand Theft Auto, is a big seller