Violent Video Games

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.

Does playing video games increase aggressive behavior in children? Both the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, according to Susan Scutti, take a firm stance against children and teens playing violent video games. Violent video game playing and aggressive behavior are correlated, but not causational. With the use of scientific experiment and random sampling, one can conclude that violent video games do have a significant effect on aggression, but not in the way that we think.

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.

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.

In 2008 an eight year-old intentionally, living in slaughter louisiana,shot his grandmother in the head right after playing grand theft auto IV. In America the rate of mass shootings and obesity each year. Video Games also teach antisocial behavior. Video games are responsible for increase of violence in schools, desensitizing American youth, and prompting unhealthy behaviors.

Lately, it seems that there has been an abundance of horrible mass shootings and brutal violence in our world. In today’s seemingly dangerous world, parents are yearning to protect their children from getting involved in these savage crimes. Now, a great deal of people, especially parents, accuse violent video games as the cause of this growing epidemic. The controversy of video game induced violence has a long history, but it didn’t appear in the spotlight until the disturbing Columbine shooting in 1999, when the gunmen were said to have been addicted to violent video games. Since 1999, there have been more mass shootings and vicious crimes that have been accursed on video games. While siding with the belief that video games create violence

Video games have been around for over fifty years and have become quite popular over the past four decades. In fact, they are so popular that a certain subset of them have recently come into scrutiny and are a topic of hot debate. This subset contains video games that are violent in nature, which, many people loathe. Those people try to use many fallacious tactics to persuade others to join their cause. Take the article ‘Violent Video Games Can Desensitize Players and Increase Aggression’ for example, firstly it hooks an audience with its hasty generalization that violent video games create mass murderers, secondly it uses cum hoc ergo propter hoc to provide evidence that video games contribute to and enforce desensitization and aggression, and thirdly it uses appeals to anonymous authorities to provide accreditation for the content it discusses.

A significantly large portion of the video games created within the past 5 to 10 years contain some form of violence. On top of that, some of the most popular video games out in the market today are extremely violent and warrant an “M” rating for mature. Video game developers are well aware of this trend and continue to produce more graphic, interactive, and realistic content. Therefore, there is a concern that the vast amount of violence in video games is changing how youth develop and what they perceive as normal. Many researchers believe that there is a link between video games and increased aggression in the people who play them.

Throughout the history of video games, one of the most important parts of having a video game is the controller. For years ever since video game consoles have been invented it has had a controller to operate all of its features.Without the controller you would not be able to operate the video game console because the controller is like a beacon to the console,it does whatever the controller operates it to do. The controller structure is a very unique design and model. It is built into a way that it can be held and it fits the grooves of your hands so that you can manage to operate all the buttons on the controller to perform the actions that transfer to the game system which shows up on the television. Although due to failures in the video game, the controller becomes the most frustrating aspect of the game.

April 20th, 1999, two students in Littleton, Colorado came into school and shot and killed 13 people and wounded numerous other students. (Columbine High School Shooting). This event is at the top of the list as one of the deadliest shootings. There has been speculation that these two were influenced by the inappropriate music and the violent video games that they had played. For reasons like Columbine and many other tragedies violent video games should be prohibited.

Every child is born innocent; it is the way a child grows up that causes them to act violently in some situations. Every child is innocent until they are exposed to all the harmful and dangerous that everyone lives with. There are many factors that can destroy a child's life; growing up watching violent movies, playing violent games, living with a violent family, and being peer pressured are some of the many factors that are increasing the amount of violence among children.

There have been many studies done regarding research on video game violence. Steve F. Gruel argues the more time a child spends playing first person shooters the more likely this person will become a killer. A study found that playing violent video games will also increase adolescent’s aggressive thinking/behavior on a daily basis (General Aggression Model). Obviously, this is true considering the fact the more kills you get in video games the better rewards you receive. It is also pointed out that video game violence is almost like an “addiction” for some. Video game addiction has

“Experts agree that no single factor can cause a nonviolent person to act aggressively, some studies suggest that heavy exposure to violent media can be a risk factor for violent behavior. Children who are exposed to multiple risk factors, including substance abuse, aggression, and conflict at home and also consume violent media are more likely to behave aggressively.” (Commonsensemedia.org 1) I am accepting the fact that this method is valid, though we are striving to answer if violent video games absolutely create violent citizens and according to researchers and investigations in the recent year's data has gone exclusively from one faction to the other.

In today’s society, the average child will devote most of his or her time to playing video games. Research shows that about 38% of preadolescent and 41% of adolescent males use video games on a given day compared with only 16% of preadolescent and 7% of adolescent females (Calvert et. Al. 129). They would spend about 13 hours a week playing video games and around 89% of those games include violence and blood. In Jia-Kun Zheng article, “Priming Effect of Computer Game Violence on Children’s Aggression Levels,” Zheng mainly focuses on how violent and non-violent games effect children, ranging from age 9 to 12, aggression levels. In order to determine the effects, two experiment, referred to as Study 1 and Study 2, were done. In Study 1 the participants played two games and identified them as violent and non-violent. In Study 2 the participants played either the violent or non-violent game and after were tested on the way they responded to a series of questions. In the end they found that those who played violent video games had higher levels of aggression compared to the children who played non-violent video games. While there was no significant difference between girls who played violent video games and non-violent video games, there was a difference in the girls compared to boys – boys were more aggressive (Zheng and Zhang 1747-1755).

In my opinion I strongly agree that violent video games do not create violence in adolescents. If anything violent video games scare kids and make them not want to hurt anybody or be violent themselves in real life. In today's society juvenile violent crime is at a 30 year low and if anything it seems like today's adolescents are getting softer than they were 30 years ago. I believe that today's adults that oppose violent video games are over reacting just because this technology is new and they never had it as kids.