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
The main argument of this article is that video games have a direct link to short term and long term aggression. The author presents this argument by providing studies from peer reviewed articles that all conclude that video games do cause an increase of aggression. The main point of this article is to answer the question, “Do violent video games lead to aggression.” The article is about the effects of violent video games leading to aggression. The author uses recent examples, like the Sandy Hook and Washington Navy Yard shooting. In both of these examples, the author cites that both shooters had a history with playing violent video games. The author uses a study which selected individuals to play violent video games for a certain period of time. The study would then compare the results to a group who played non-violent video games. The study concluded that violent video games cause a direct link in aggression due to humans reenacting the actions the characters within the video games perform.
Studies have shown that repeated exposure to violent video games over time does affect the structure and functioning of the adolescent brain. The brain is a malleable and ‘plastic’ structure that can change and evolve with every stimulus we give it. Whether this stimulus comes from studying Spanish, training in basketball or playing a video game, every single input can affect the structure and functions of the brain if the conditions are right. While some video games enhance multitasking, visual perception and the brain’s ability to process information, research has suggested that violent video games can influence aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognition and physiological arousal. A study conducted by Doctor Vincent Matthews and his colleagues at Indiana University School of Medicine have found that there were sustained changes in the regions of the brain associated with cognitive function and emotional control after a group of young adult men were playing violent video games for a week. Similarly, in laboratory studies, some researchers have found an increase of about four percent in gamers’ levels of aggression after playing violent video games. However, other research groups have concluded that factors such as family background, mental health and
“Approximately 90 percent of kids in the U.S. play video games, and more than 90 percent of those games involve mature content that includes violence.”-(Time Health). The link between violent media and aggression in video games has also created a spawn of research studies that has gone back and forth on the issue of whether
Prolonged scenes of massive violence, graphic sexual content, and animated blood are examples of statements that the Entertainment Software Rating Board uses to depict the content in over fifty- five percent of the video games rated yearly. The debate of whether the aggressive nature of these video games influences youth violence in our country has been heatedly battled for decades. Since the mid 1980’s, it has been suggested that high profile cases of violence are due to an aggressor’s excessive video game use. However, much like a cold case the type of connection between video game use and youth violence remains without a definite answer. Most believe that video game use negatively influences child aggression acts in our country. Others firmly declare that video games provide a realm of opportunity for child development. Ultimately, it is impossible to say that video game use affects every child the same way. New studies suggest that video games do not affect every child that plays a game. Although violent video games are innocuous for the majority of adolescents between the ages of twelve and eighteen, the effects of these games are aggravated in those with pre- existing antisocial or depressive traits.
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.
Following the April 1999 Columbine High School shooting, the April 2007 Virginia Tech rampage, and the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, considerable debate has emerged regarding the impact of hyper-aggressive, violent video games as a causal agent for such murderous behavior by young adults. In a videotape recorded before the Columbine shooting, Eric Harris, one of the two teenager shooters, expressed enthusiasm for the planned shooting, saying it would be "like [profanity] Doom.” Seung-Hui Cho, the twenty-three year-old who killed thirty-two people at Virginia Tech University was a big fan of violent
Anderson, Craig A. (2003). An update on the effects of playing violent video games. Retrieved October 5, 2010 from http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/fa09/dis/02/extra/update_violence.pdf
Throughout a number of recent studies, participants playing violent video games have consistently shown increases in their aggressive behavior, both during and after the gameplay. A study that linked violent video games to child aggression found that in every group they tested, “Children who were exposed to more video game violence did become more aggressive over time than their peers who had less exposure” (Harding 1). An increase in aggressive behavior after playing violent video games is quite common in most cases, although many gamers would argue that other factors, such as people’s emotions, cause this negative change in behavior. This reveals numerous questions surrounding the effects that video game violence might have on
According to Hollingdale and Greitemeyer (2014), Video games that are violent are identified as very popular games that are played by the consumers. There is a concern that violent video games may pose a public health risk due to the levels of aggression due to the effects of the video games. In a cross sectional studies it has been found that there is a positive correlations with real life and video game aggression. Also in longitudinal studies shows that playing violent video games constantly it can predict that there may be later aggression even after controlling for initial levels of aggression. Experimental studies have showed that playing the video game is a factor of an increase level of
A secure link between violent video games and violent behaviors has not yet been proven. Studies have shown numerous design flaws and have used unreliable sources such as noise blast tests to test their theory. Aforementioned only one-eighth of attackers have exhibited interests in video games. A report has not yet been proven to link violent video games with violent behaviors in school shootings but show that behavioral problems come from violent movies and other resources.
Hundreds of studies have been done to determine whether violent video games will really make juveniles more violent. Randomized experiments were used in several studies to examine the short-term effect of violent video games (Anderson and Berkowitz et al. 90). In these studies, children were randomly assigned to play violent or nonviolent video games and then were observed when given an opportunity to be aggressive. The result was that children who played violent video games usually behaved aggressively.
Video games have become very influential on children and adults (Stafford, 1999). With violent video games humans are more prone to act aggressively, to have aggressive thoughts and become numb towards violence (Harding, 2009). Apart from these they are
Risky behavior by children and young adults can include violence against others or lack of remorse for consequences. The type of faulty thinking creates stressors in children which can lead to the onset of many symptoms. Children who partake in video game violence are more likely to have increased feelings of hostility, decreased emotional response to the portrayal of violence, and injury that lead to violent behavior through imitation. A new study employing state-of-the-art brain-scanning technology says that violent video games can cause an individual to become violent. Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine say that brain scans of kids who played a violent video game showed an increase in emotional arousal and a corresponding decrease of activity in brain areas involved in self-control, inhibition, and attention. In short, when playing a violent game, an individual’s brain processes the game playing as “fictional”, but later can project some of the unknown effects as violence or aggression.
After the elementary school shooting of Sandy Hook in 2012 this issue of violent video games became a hot issue calling for a connection of violence to video games. However, the final investigative report suggested that he was more a fan of nonviolent games (Ferguson, 2015). Video game violence is an issue that continues to be studied due to the inability to come to a general conclusion on whether or not the games provoke violence in connection to mass shootings. With shootings occurring and receiving mass coverage the media and public often seek a person/item to place the blame on. After the tragic events that left people dead or injured one of the topics that emerged was that of video games affects/effects on the person.
Ninety-eight percent of pediatricians say violent video games lead to aggression. Eight out of ten researchers say violent video games lead to violent behavior. Studies show children who play violent video games usually bully. Video games also reward the player for violence, which teaches players that violence leads to rewards. Violent video games teach people to aim for the more lethally vulnerable parts of the body like the head. The teenagers who attacked Columbine High School which is located in Colorado, in 1999, were highly interested in violent video games. Another attacker, who attacked a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, also had a high interest in violent video games. Two Tennessee teens who shot at driving cars told police they got the idea from Grand Theft Auto the highly violent video game.