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Video Game Violence Controversy

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Ever since the spawn of video games people have been glued to the fun and challenges they present. Over the years, these fun and challenging games evolved into violence and shooting. As a result of this evolution, controversy has arisen about violent video games leading to behavior issues. Do they lead to aggressiveness and hostility? Does excessive video game violence change how the brain reacts to violence? These are just a few common questions doctors and researchers have been trying to answer. Through all of this debate, a common consensus has been established. The constant and repetitive violence in video games can lead to a wide variety of behavioral issues despite some debate. Today, the video game business is booming and shows no …show more content…

“Violent video games reinforce violence as a mean of solving problems by rewarding the behavior” (ProCon). For example in popular violent games like Call of Duty, kills are rewarded by leveling up and unlocking new weapons, “This can skew a person’s perspective of violence” (VGA). Violent games that reward behavior only encourages the user want to keep on playing and using violence to do so. Techniques like rewarding behavior are commonly used in the real world. For example, dogs are trained using this technique as well as kids behaving well for Santa and it seems to work. In an experiment conducted by National Center for Biotechnology Information, one violent video game rewarded violent behavior and the other punished violent behavior. The results found the game that rewarded violent behavior increased hostile emotion, thinking, and behavior (Effects of …show more content…

A professor from the university of Wisconsin conducted an experiment to see how violent video games affect one’s behavior. The experiment found the video games improved overall mood of the participants, but there was a catch. The results also indicated the participants that played the violent games, “Viewed the outside world as hostile, portraying aggressive tendencies in the process” (Yodice). Some researchers may argue that people know how to control themselves and separate the video game world from real life. This argument is invalid because, in recent years, many perpetrators of mass shooting actively play violent video games. Anders Breivik, who is responsible for the Norway attacks and the lives of over 70 people, admitted to using Call of Duty as a training tactic. James Holmes and Jared Loughner also played violent video games. Another example of violent behavior is two teenagers in Tennessee who admitted to shooting at passing cars after they received the idea from Grand Theft Auto (ProCon). Support for video games leading to aggressive behavior, like shootings and bombings, is supported by large bodies of evidence

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