Have Violent Video Games Changed Over The Years

As someone who has played multiple violent videogames, I can personally say that they have not caused me to develop any childhood problems. Video games provide many people with a safe virtual area to relief stress. “...it does seem that playing violent games may help reduce stress and make people less depressed and hostile” (Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson, 2010). Ferguson took a group of 103 young adults, gave them a frustrating task and randomly gave them either no game, a nonviolent game, a violent game as a good character,

A CNN report stated “A recent meta-analysis in 2010 of 12 earlier studies found a link between time spent playing bloody video games and violent behavior later in life.” Being exposed to the idea of violence can put ideas in your head and can cause a more likely chance for someone to act on their thoughts of

From a young age some of us begin to play video games. Violent video games can share the bad and the good. Yet, their problems outweigh the benefits such as being influenced, having nightmares , and becoming addicting.

According to Brad Bushman, a psychologist at Ohio State University,“We did a comprehensive review of every experimental study, reviewing 381 effects from studies involving 130,000 people, and results show that playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and physiological arousal” (Source 3). This shows that many test results from people who play violent video games are becoming more angry. Brad Bushman’s point is that people should cut down on the video game playing time. Next, Rowell Huesmann, a psychologist at the University of Michigan says,“Video games could be expected to have a larger effect than media violence. The player is participating.

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.

Moreover, many kids deal with violence and can’t control it. As a result of having issues with violence some people play video games to let their violence and anger out. People need to understand that “ [b]ut overall, violent crime is down in the US-indeed, as violent games have become more popular, violent crime has fallen." (Erik Kain 1) The more popular the game is studies show violent

The World Health Organization(2014) defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community”A website called Psychology Today(2013) says “There were visible alterations in MRI brain scans after only one week of playing a violent video game.” meaning just one week of video games can seriously affect how you think about life.Psychology Today(2013) also states”In particular, there was a significant decrease in the activation of the frontal portions of the brain and a greater activation of the processing part of the brain(scientifically known as the amygdala)” Meaning the brain is thinking more about violence than it is supposed to be thinking about.

As technology as progressed, more people, especially youth, take part in playing video games. There has been an steady increase of video game usage because of the fact that video games have become more life-like and realistic. While they have become more realistic in aesthetic ways, they have also become more violent in content as well. Games like Call of Duty

However, more convincing evidence shows that it is only very young children who are affected, and that older children and teens are relatively unaffected by the violence in their video games.

Playing violent video games is worse the watching violent television because in video games they control the action of whom or what you are playing; they are the ones to pull the trigger (Sohn, Emily). Researchers from the Indiana University did a study where 22 kids played a violent game for 30 minutes and another 22 played a nonviolent game. The kids who played violent video games amygdala were more active; this part of the brain controls the fight of flight response. The kids who played violent games also had less frontal lobe activity which is the part of the brain that stops our self from kicking, punching, etc. (Sohn, Emily). A man named Bushman did some studies with kids randomly assigned to play Doom 3 or Killzone, violent video games, or MarioKart or a Tony Hawk game which are nonviolent games. After which they were told to give a blast of sound from 1 to 10 to another person, who they did not know was imagery, anything over and 8 would cause hearing damage. The kids who played violent video games gave there partner loader noises, sometime to the point to cause them to go deft (Sohn, Emily).

With the popularity and production of video games constantly rising since the mid 90s, you would also imagine that the violent and illegal acts in teens would have also risen, but that is not the case. In fact, violent acts in youth have steadily decreased during the past 20 years, and are projected to continue to fall. While there could be many reasons for this drop in violence, the most likely one is that the inclusion of violence in video games actually provides an outlet for frustrated and angry teens to safely discharge their anger in the digital world, and not upon anyone in the real world. Video games offer an area in which your mind can explore and wander with no fear of consequences, so in

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".

The evolution of video games has taken a drastic change since the 1970’s when video games were first introduced. Since then every decade video games have become more violent in nature with strong language and realistic to suit society today. Craig Anderson states that with more violence in video games they would sell better than games with less violence (Anderson, Gentile, and Beckley pg.5). Violent video games really became popular when the first person shooter games were invented so that we could see through the eyes of the player, as if we were really experiencing it. Society wanted better graphics and games as time went on new technology was invented and society matured in electronics. This meant that for game creators would have to come up with something better selling than the last. Creators would make the games more violent and more realistic each time so that way they can keep the interest of their consumers. Each game would increase in blood or gore slowly, but what really got consumers to buy their games would be the update of graphics in the consoles or games. This is due to the drastic changing of technology and the maturing of consumers wanting better and newer violent video games. Violent video games can cause children to behave violently if not correctly supervised.

Violent games are often played by kids, and kids are the main group of people who have desire to win. So, this mentality causes them get more and more angry, which may directly led to crimes. It is easy to have a casual effect after losing a game. That could makes people want to play another round, until they addicted into games. Children are still growing, and they start another game because they lose the last game, and this cycle will make the children more addictive. If games play more, they will feel immersive, it will give people a fake impression, and will affect the children 's growth. Also it influencing people’s time, this may cause children have less time to feel our planet, the outside world. Some of them are limited by violent video games, because they already addicted by those games. Secondly, violent behavior in reality is often caused by violent video games. People who likes to play violent video games are easy to get confused about reality and virtual. People are very focus when they play games, games could let people feels they are the character in the game. It could make people get angry, and once they finished their game, back to reality, they also may still think about the game, and want to have a chance to experience it, whether the result is as same as the game or not, and this could lead them to have a strong violent behavior in reality. Violent video games may change

Video game makers have even advanced video games to give you the fell of using real weapons, also called virtual reality. There is a professor at the University of Missouri says that violent video games change behavior. First person shooter games help team players how to hurt people because first person shooter games are usually more realistic. Sixty percent sixth to eighth grade boys who play m-rated video games have hit or beat up somebody. Many people who have acted in mass shootings played violent video games. Violent video games have the tendency to lower people's empathy and they also lower people’s kindness. The APA says violent video games will risk the factor for aggression. When violent video games reward a player for violence, kids think violence is a good thing because they learn that you get rewards for committing violent acts. Sixty-seven percent of parents even agree that violent video games do lead to aggression.