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Do video games contribute to more violence
Do video games contribute to more violence
Do video games contribute to more violence
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In recent years, as video games become more violent and crime increases, people have begun to blame the crime on violent video games! Not only is it wrong, its dumb. Just because a game is violent doesn’t mean it makes the person violent. FBI Statistics The percentage of violence in teens has gone down since computer and video game popularity increased. The popularity increase is not the cause of the violence decrease itself. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared: “The state has not produced substantial evidence that … violent video games cause psychological or neurological harm to minors” (Gallagher). The suggestion that videogames are the cause of violence in people is ridiculous beyond imagine. If researchers, and FBI workers even, have shown that violence has decreased, then why are we still blaming video games for violence? The video games are not telling people that they should go and kill someone, or to rob a bank for some quick cash. Video Games have a rating system that allows parents to be aware of the content of the games their children play. All current game...
A young, blonde woman stands with her fists raised. She shifts her weight back and forth, staying in constant motion. Her jaw is set and her blue eyes dangerous. She faces her opponent with no fear. Her fellow combatant is a skilled warrior and a member of a Shirai Ryu clan. He’s spent years mastering his own special style of martial arts. The woman observes him carefully. He’s muscular and, no doubt, fast. She cannot see most of his face, as a gold and black mask obscures it, but she can see his eyes. They’re merciless. She eyes the harpoon at his hip. He’ll probably go for that first and try to stun her with it. The cue is given and, sure enough, he grabbed his harpoon and aimed it at her, snarling, “Get over here!” She’d anticipated his moves well and she sidestepped his harpoon. He figured out that she knew his obvious attacks, he began to use more quick attacks, moving quickly in the shadows, confusing her. He soon overpowers her. Dazed and dizzy, she is at his mercy. Unfortunately, mercy is a quality he lacks. He wraps his harpoon around her neck and opens a portal. She’s pulled into it and he holds onto his chain tightly. Another portal opens above and her body dangles from it, strung up by his chain. The announcer’s voice lets out in a deep grumbling voice, “Fatality”. Meanwhile, in a living room, the gruesome scene fades to black and two friends laugh at each other for the graphic execution and go on playing the newest release of the Mortal Kombat series.
The article “Do Video Games Kill” written by Karen Sternheimer addresses the widespread question; are video games the cause for “young killers”? (220) Sternheimer believes concern for the influence of video games may have on youth is spiraling out of control. She puts most of the blame for this out of control concern on the media. She also writes some about the politicians and the Juvenile Justice System. Sternheimer suggests that there are other factors to blame for violent behavior: poverty, the neighborhood, unemployment, family violence, divorced parents and mental illness (218). While it may be that juvenile crimes have declined, and personal backgrounds effect actions, it cannot be proven that video game violence has no to little effect on
Now a day every video game has something violent going on. Such as in 2010 the top 20 games out in the market were violent related. When a kid sees in a video game that he can beat someone else up and get away with it they think they can do that in real life. This will increase bullying and kids are being taught not to bully. Every kid plays video games even if it’s a racing game or a shooting game. In 2008, 97% of kids from the age of 12-17 played video games. Most M rated games have sexual violence and when a kid sees that in a game and then beats the girl up. The crime rate for rape will increase as it has. A study in 2009 found that it only takes a child four minutes of playing a game to make him have aggressive and violent thoughts going through his head. The critics of violent video game has that bully has increase 32% because of violent video games. Also in the study when a child sees blood when beating up or killing someone in a game he will have more aggressive thoughts than normal.
People have always been looking for a reason why horrible things happen. The media is quick to blame video games as the target and cause of many shootings that have occurred, ever since Columbine and Quake. People have been blaming video games for violence for years now, ever since violent video games have been made. News reports blame video games more and more for each shooting, telling the public how this person played video games for x amount of hours a day, and that video games caused him or her to shoot people, and how video games encourage and reward violence. Anti-video game lobbyists have been campaigning to have violence removed from video games, citing resources that they themselves have created as reasons for such, poorly done studies where they confirm that kids are more aggressive through how much hot sauce they put on someone’s fries. While unbiased studies of video games and their links to violence are hard to come by, recent research has shown that video games do not in fact have a casual link to violence, and may even have the opposite effect. Violent video games have nearly no link to violence in teens or adults.
In this day and age it seems as if America's youth is becoming more violent. Concern for those aspects in our society which influence violent acts has become an issue since the tragedy at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Many feel one aspect of today's society affecting our nation's youth in a negative manner is video games. Is this form of entertainment really a factor in teen violence? I think not. Video games are not to blame for increased teen violence.
In 1998, the US software industry sold $6.3 billion worth of video games (see Unknown). Not bad for an industry that didn't exist 25 years ago! Yet despite its continued growth, all is not well in the video game industry. School shootings in Littleton, Colorado; Pearl, Mississippi; Paducah, Kentucky; Conyers, Georgia and many other towns have shocked the nation (see Malcolm). Understandably, grieving parents and sympathetic citizens are searching for a cause for this "outbreak" of youth violence. It is natural to assume, "when children, the symbol of innocence, commit the severest of crimes, then something must be going wrong with society." (see Maker)
Most games today that children play depict some type of violence. However, parents neglect that the games have warnings for violence, language, and even nudity. In my own personal experience, kids will ask for the most trending games at the time and parents will buy the game to satisfy the needs and wants of the children.
Video games have positive and negative aspects. Acording to a study, those who spend hours and hours in playing ‘civic games’ were found to take more part in different community services like social work, politics or protests, as compared to those who never took interest in vidoe games. Hence video games are proved to increase one’s social interaction skills. The kind of friendship and ethics that are learnt by the young gamers while playing video games provide evidence that they are not completely harmful to our society. (Heins, 62)
For the past twenty years whenever there has been a shooting of any kind, committed by a young male, people have blamed video games. They say that video games make people violent. But that isn’t true. Video games may make people violent while playing them but that violence never leads any further than yelling at the television screen. Video games should not be put down. In fact video games help people better their motor skills, the military uses video games for training exercises, and a lot of people use video games to relieve stress.
then video games could be responsible for much of the bad news we hear on television.
Although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it. I am focusing on violent video games and how they affect juveniles because I feel that this issue needs to be looked at in the criminal justice community. It is an unnecessary distraction to blame the actions of a disturbed youth on a form of entertainment that has been used by millions of people without incident. A review article published in The Psychiatric Quarterly found that many studies which claim to indicate an increase in aggression due to video games are, in fact, biased! Once the bias is taken into account, the studies no longer find any correlation between youths who play violent video games and youths who demonstate aggression and violent behavior. (Ferguson, 2014)
The first reason video games are an issue is that many video games made today possess content that many people would consider to be obscene. The term obscene covers violence, profanity, and sexual images (obviously). Such videogames are usually branded with the M (mature audiences only) rating on the front of the videogame cover. This means that only players seventeen or older should be playing such games. However, many children around the ages of twelve and under are acquiring these video games as gifts or are purchasing the games themselves. Therefore, it can be assumed that the parents are purchasing M-rated games for their children, and that stores are willingly selling these young children M-rated games. As Paul Keegan says, parents are not following these ratings and stores are not enforcing them, thus allowing young children to view content that is considered obscene (6). Thus, if parents understand and follow the various video game rating labels, and if stores enforce the videogame rating system, then young children will not be as easily able to view mature material.
“Contrary to the claims that violent video games are linked to aggressive assaults and homicides, no evidence was found to suggest that this medium was a major (or minor) contributing cause of violence in the United States.” (Markey, 290)
Some people believe that violent video games can cause behavioral problems. This is not true; it is only their opinion. They may say people that play violent video games start having behavioral problems, and what was that cause? It is only people and it has no effect on them, only their own actions and their mental health issues. The violent video games for computers and consoles’ sales rate went up, but violent crime offenses went down.
“YOU SUCK!” “I killed him!” “Head shot!” These are just a few examples of dialogue spoken by children while they are playing violent video games. These video games might seem like harmless fun, but what if the violence in these games is affecting the behavior of young players interacting with others?