Violent Video Games Harmful To Children

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.

Since video games have been introduced, video games have been accused of contributing too many atrocities, and acts of violence. News outlets paint video games as being a source of which some acts of violence happen. Yes, violent video games have become more popular, meanwhile becoming controversial, but still there exist no links between aggression and video games. The University of Bologna says that “owning videogames does not in fact seem to have negative effects on aggressive human behavior” (Koffler par.7). Meanwhile, news outlets keep on missing the point on how beneficial video games are. Video games do not contribute to violence, can be educational, and they can improve us in different ways.

The article by J. Ramirez, Clinton Village News, states that Violent Video Games Harm Our Kids ensuring the reason of violence in young people who have played countless hours of violent video games.

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!

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.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that a 2005 law restricting the sale of violent video games to those under the age of 18 was unconstitutional. The court ruled that the law was not backed by scientific evidence and therefore goes against the first amendment, which requires proof of harm in order to violate. The case came about after a group of politicians expressed concern about the effects violent video games had upon children. Prosecutor Stefen F. Gruel fought in favor of the ban, citing studies and research which displayed a correlation between violent video games and violence in children. Whereas defense attorney Patricia A. Millett argued that the research was not thorough enough and that there is substantial evidence that negates the research Gruel’s used to argue his case. With the ever-increasing video game industry, it is important to fully understand the impacts such technology is having on children positive and negative. I believe that the evidence does not support a correlation between violence in video games and violence in children, though it does support the causation of other possible negative effects. I also do not think the government establishing a ban on violent video games for minors would greatly reduce the number of children playing them due to the culture of violence in the United States.

“Many video games sold to the general public, including Metal Gear Solid 2 and Full Spectrum Warrior, were originally developed by the military to be used for sniper training. One effect of these games is to suppress the natural inhibition to kill. The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service contend that intense engagement with these violent video games is a factor in numerous school shootings. In fact, killing simulation games have been found in the homes of most school shooters who use these games to prepare for attacks on their classmates.” So, if we are going to blame video games and now call them killing simulators, why aren’t shootings happening every day in every school. Most teenagers who play these first person shooters, have either never seen or shot an actual weapon. You have to also think about the weapons in these games. Most of these weapons don’t even exist, and even if they did, a teenager could not possibly get their hands on them unless they are already members of gangs, or their parents own one, which isn’t always the case. Mr. Thompson also talks about how police found these violent games in the hands of those who decided to shoot up a school. Well, that’s like saying 100 percent of murderers was found to drink water. You can pick any random child in high school, odds are they have a “violent” video game in their home, so this particular research seems to be very bias and not even well thought out. A middle

While violent video games have increased as a form of entertainment, an issue has begun to form on whether violent video games have a negative impact on children and adolescents. Steven F. Gruel (2010) formed an argument about the negative impacts of violent video games on children. The purpose of this paper is to critique Gruel’s argument by finding flaws and strengths using the methods of claims without data, overgeneralization, failing to cite sources, and considering alternative explanations.

There is overwhelming scientific research that suggests that playing violent video games are harmful to children and adolescents. The scientific evidence has uncovered several areas in the development of children and adolescent that are negatively impacted because of the exposure to and playing of violent video games. Some of the key areas that are negatively affected include brain activity, stress levels and behavior.

In their research of violent videogames and the effect on children, they have found that “the simplistic belief that exposure to media violence will lead directly to individual violence is clearly wrong.” (Kutner, Olsen, 2008) I am going to ask you to look deeper than this. I assert that although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it.

Kids with touchscreen phones and parents with tablets, technology is the future. A lot of kids and even adults play video games. Almost everyone in the world has some sort of video game or device that is used to play games. It's what new, what everyone wants and sometimes needs. So no matter what, you will see people playing video games and you can’t stop it. So why are video games good for you? Video games especially violent ones help vision and hand eye coordination. Crime rates in the U.S have gone down significantly since video games have gotten more and more popular. The U.S government cannot link violent behavior of people to the playing of violent video games.

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.

Aimee Tompkins (2003) claims that children are being affected by everything what they see around them in the youth, and people, who see violence in the youth, always tend to be more hostile and less responsive to images of violence. That 's why parents try to border children from any possible negative influences. But they often do not even realize that by buying to child a game console, they put them into the risk. Since most video games contain violent character. According to statistics given by the ‘Children now’ organization (2001), 89% of the top-selling video games have violent character and serious violence is contained in half of them.

“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