Why Do Videogames Cause Violence?

Video games are enjoyable for people and have good benefits for children who use their multiple skills to play and interact with others. In many parts of the world, the common video game is often seen by parents as something that is wasting their child's time or “rotting their brain”. It is a popular misconception that video games are bad for children. What parents do not know is the positive things about video games. Video games have a positive impact on people and help them learn things for experiences to come. People often do not understand that violent video games are not harmful to people because video games allow people to release their anger, video games decrease crime in youth, and because they allow people to be creative and test their

In today’s society there has been an ongoing debate regarding the effects of violent video games and the development of today’s youth. Many people believe that the violence in video games promotes aggression. According to Doctor Brad Bushman’s article, "Do Violent Video Games Increase Aggression?" he claims that violent video games leads to aggression because it is interactive process that teaches and rewards violent behavior. Yet others believe that this not the case. Gregg Toppo of the Scientific American, writes in his article, “Do Video Games Inspire Violent Behavior?” that video games are not a significant issue because teenagers know how differentiate between reality and fantasy. Because of the controversy surrounding this topic, I decided to research the question, “Does exposure to violent video games cause aggressive behavior among teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18?” Initially before performing any extensive research on this subject, I hypothesized that violent video games do cause aggressive behavior. I then proceeded to study different scholarly works that both supported and opposed my hypothesis. What I learned from those works eventually gave me a more complete understanding of the topic and allowed me to take a more educated stance.

It seems like everything coming out about video games is bad. A student tried to kill his fellow classmates, and he was an avid Call of Duty player. A study has been released that proves that playing video games will turn you into a criminal. The many benefits of games and gaming, such as their possible applications to education and their ability to tell more complex stories than other forms of media, are almost universally ignored. I know better, though. Between the lifetime I’ve spent playing and loving video games, and the articles I’ve found, I can tell you that video games do not cause violent behavior or thoughts.

It is true that there have been many debates over this topic of video games but most people don’t really understand the world of video games and technology. In “Dream Machine” by Will Wright explains to us that many people only view video game as a negative and don’t think beyond that point. “Most people on the far side of the generational divide-elder-look at games and see a list of ills (They’re violent, addictive, childish, worthless).” (Wright 211). I believe that there are a few flaws in playing video games. There are a few games out there that have crude acts of violence, language, and also display sexual material. There are labels on them to help parents know what their children are playing. However, not a lot of people know that there are also a positive side of playing video games. Non-gamers need to understand that playing video games can enlighten the mind of people. It can help with creativity and imagination is one of the main benefits of playing video games. “They [videogames] will allow us to express ourselves, meet others, and create things that we can only dimly imagine.” (213) I strongly agree with what Wright is stating, it is amazing how people can play with each other around the world and also there are some games with good problem solving and also how to work as a team. Technology devices are also a big part of the argument, it can of prevent us from speaking face to face and it has a different way to communicate around the

To begin with, video games are something kids, teens, and even adults enjoy playing every day. Video games have provided people endless hours of entertainment to people across the globe, yet people seemingly want to get rid of video games altogether. Whenever any sort of crime occurs and a report comes out that the individual plays video games, video games take the blame rather than the person who committed the crime. Video games tend to be a very common scapegoat for causing violence. However, video games may not be the cause of the crime or issue at all.

Many kids and adults have some kind of video game whether it be on the computer, phone, or a game console. So many people think video games are bad for you, your health, and your mind but have no hard evidence to prove it. Here is some hard evidence proving them wrong. Studies have shown that video games, especially shooting or violent video games, improve your eyesight. There is no hard evidence that links violent video games to causing violent crimes. Some people believe the reason that teenagers kill and commit crimes are because of violent video games, but that is not why. It's usually something emotional going on in their life like stress, or something much worse. People believe that video games are bad for us when they really aren't because the tests have shown us just that.

Video games do not incite violence because their contents are incomparable to reality. Although gaming technology is constantly evolving, their basic setup remains the same: a controller to input commands, speakers to resonate sound, a screen to project graphics, and a central unit to process information, games, and link all the components together. For us, these elements mainly appeal to only two primary senses: sight and sound. In the real-world, we involve all five of our senses to monitor our surroundings, but for games, we are limited to two. While taste and smell can be considered insignificant for surveying environments, touch is inexorable. In any general first-person shooter game, simply pressing the left mouse button to fire and tapping

In April 26, 2002, nineteen-year-old Robert Steinhäuser, was found armed with a pistol and shotgun, at the high school in Erfurt. He then proceeded to shoot and kill 16 people before taking his own life. The report found that while Steinhäuser's grades and attendance were falling and that he became more involved with a local shooting club and began assembling a personal weapons arsenal. The report also stated that he had a collection of violent films and computer games in his room during an investigation pursuant to the shooting (Diamond).

A man tells us his IQ raised tremendously only after playing many video games. This man was indeed smarted and more self aware of his surrounding just because of the video games. He had many friends and even made money for playing those games. His whole career depended on this. Without it his life may just fall apart. With these facts we know that videogames can help individual life with little to no bad consequences. This also tells us that video games may help people calm themselves and use this technology as a source of violence online instead of violence in the real world.

Video games have been commonplace in households for many years and development of these systems will only continue to grow and change. Video game systems could be found in households as early as 1972 and they have become even more accessible as time has gone on. Genres of games have as wide of a range as literature, with games ranging from war stories to fantasy adventures. With this large spectrum of genres comes a lot of uneasiness about what the people, more specifically the children, who play these games experience. For a long time there was very little discourse when it came to video games, most were very simple with no obvious violence. Then in 1976 came a game called Death Race. This game became a small hotspot for controversy due to

Secondly, video games have been known to build social skills among many who play them. It is widely known that video games have changed drastically. Now people are able to play and communicate with each other from all different parts of the world. Most games nowadays are virtually online game-play only, which means, that the players are all playing together on one server and they do not have the choice to play the game by themselves. This makes it easier to see why video games increase social skills among the nation's youth. “Playing prosocial video games increased prosocial behaviors: children who frequently played

“ You don't get another chance, life is no nintendo game.” Marshall Mathers ( Eminem ). This kind of thing is hurting the reputation of big game sellers. By people take and say that videogames cause violence is unacceptable. And this seems to happen every time there's a school shooting. But these kinds of things happen all across America. This theory that videogames cause violence is because people have nothing else to blame this on. And thats because theres not alot of research on the topic. These “theories” need to stop for people everywhere who are now being labeled because of a few mental kids.

Guns have become a popular weapon in video games and manufacturers use this as a form of advertisement. These advertisements are encouraging gun violence and killing for a win. Some of the games were designed to teach men how to shoot and properly use a gun and train for the army. Two specific people that played these games were school shooters and caused the possible link between video game and human violence. In the article, there is an explanation of The Columbine massacre which supports the issue of violence connection destructive video games. There was also mention of another case of boys that shot at random cars and killed several and their explanation for doing so was that the game had enticed them to. Even though the games are conflicting

In this age of technology, it's very safe to say that a large majority of the world's population has played at least one video game. This can vary from playing games on console, like Xbox-One, Playstation 4, and for the older generation, the NES to playing mobile games like Tetris. There are many consoles that span from the creation of video games. This has opened opportunities to make several kind of games. These can vary from side-scrollers like Super Mario Bros. on the NES, to Role-playing games (RPG) like Final Fantasy IX on the Playstation 1. While this has caused some great games to surface, it has also allowed intense violence to be let into games. Parents and anti-gaming communities state that this is why kids can become violent. This is false, because violent games can be avoided to prevent this issue, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has even made various precautions to make sure parents know what they're purchasing. Comprehensible symbols, detailed lists, and age restrictions prevents children from "becoming violent".

It widely argued against whether violent video games can trigger violent behavior among those who play them. There 's many cases of the violent video games being the main factor of the person being violent, however their is plenty of factors that play a role in the case from parental neglect to drug abuse. In 1983 C. Everett Koop, the U.S. Surgeon General, claimed that video games were a leading cause of family violence. Although video game advocates argue that majority of the research on the topic is flawed and found no causal relationship with video games and social violence. Violent video games should be allowed because violent video games allow players to release stress and anger in the game and sales of violent games increase while juvenile crimes have decreased ; however, opponents feel it is that violent video games causes more aggression, bullying, and fighting; solution to this issue is the parents need to monitor their children, teach them manners and have them educated in how to treat others.