Video Games Encourage Teen Violence A sniper perched high in a eagle's nest zooms in through his scope to the head of his enemy, pulls the trigger, the enemy falls to the ground headless. This is a image that is common in the world of war, and now in the world of video games. Teens all over the world have become completely addicted to first person fighting games. With technology as great as it is today game makers are able to designed games that are so real it is truly scary. Millions of teens ( mostly male) play games in which they walk around various levels picking up weapons and killing ruthlessly their opponent. In the same day, we have teens walking around schools killing classmates ruthlessly. As an avid video game player I admit I have played many of the "shoot'em up" games. I completely agree that these games are fun and tend to feed the male ego. I also have played games that are too violent. Games wherein enemies bleed everywhere and almost nonstop. Games that you can see the opponent's facial expression before your shoot them between the eyes. I have even played a game in which there is a secret level that is modeled after Columbine. Do these violent video games influence teen violence? Probably the first violent video game was Death Race, which spawned in the 1970's. The object was to drive and kill as many pedestrians as possible. Early games such as Missile Command and Space Invaders both had to do with the destruction of the planet. (Violence, 375) With the onset of "Nintendo" the video game world exploded, going from one home console to a 6.1 billion dollar industry. In the 1980's video game companies designed games for every audience but many had a similar plot of violence. In a 1982 TV Guide eighteen po... ... middle of paper ... ...lves in our culture today. Teens are in a endless pursuit to discover who they are and want they want. Young people walk a thin line with confidence issues and moral dilemmas. I think that many teens are just violent by nature and will do things on their own free will. I believe that video games along with other sorts of media just seem to encourage youth violence. In short, I do not think that video games facilitate teen violence, I just think that it stirs the anger instilled in some violent youths. In the future, I think that better parenting, stronger regulation, and maybe a slower production of violent video games will help those teens that are affected by violent media. It is clear that there are established points on this matter. It is going to be solely up to the government, parents, and game companies to plan the attack of ending teen violence.
Violent video games can lead to aggressive and violent behavior in children and adolescents. “Violent media increase aggression by teaching observers how to aggress, by priming aggressive cognition (including previously learned aggressive scripts and aggressive perceptual schemata), by increasing arousal, or by creating an aggressive state” (Anderson and Bushman 355). As more children are becoming exposed violence in video games in the recent years, violence in schools and other locations where children are prominent has increased. “A national crime victimization survey compiled and maintained by the United States Department of Justice, shows that overall crime rates in United States society have fallen. Simultaneously, school- based studies reveal that many violent behaviors have increased among children and adolescents” (“Causes of School Violence” 1). Exposure to violence in video games can lead to aggressive behavior, desensitization, and an increase in crimes committed by children and teens in our society.
Do you think kids get more and more violent after playing video games? I think that kids do get more violent and learn more negative things from video games. Such as when kids play games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Call of Duty they want to shot and kill people. Games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto are rated M for a reason. An M rated game means mature, so you have to be 17 or older to purchase. Young 13 year olds should not be playing these games and getting so much negativity out of the game. So I think video games do cause kids and teens to do violent things.
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.
Violence has been around for quite a long time. Fights and wars are the interest of today’s society of entertainment. People are more likely to see a movie, where protagonists kill bad guys, over a romantic movie, where a typical girl finds her “knight in shining armor.” This also applies to how teens feel when playing games. Teens have a sweet tooth for violent games, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, Kill zone, Infamous, and other violent rated games. These games are like vocabulary words in a teens’ language. A recent discussion has been brought up from the Industry of Coombes Class (ICC). A worker has noticed a few news reports stating that games have influenced shooting sprees or murders in the community. Not only that but also parents are being persuaded to ban their children from playing games. The question is “Are games really influencing teens’ bad behaviors?” Well, violent games have been said to be the cause of teens’ violent acts, but this is not true. Many times this has been proven wrong by scientists and psychologists.
Video Games have been around since the early 1940s. Meaning people have been playing video games for at least the last 74 years. Based on research the first violent video game came out in 1976 known as Death Race. This game was described as sick and disturbing. Death Race was a driving game and you received points when you ran over people. Think that is violent, imagine the violence in the video games 28 years later. Violent video games affect the present and the future because they impact children’s mind, behavior, and education.
To begin, it is unquestionable that youth show more aggression when playing violent video games. According to the Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, Craig Anderson notes in his article, “The results, overall, have been fairly consistent across types of studies (experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal) and across visual media type (televisions, films, video games). There is a significant relation between exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior. Exposing children and adolescents (or ‘youth’) to violent visual media increases the likelihood that they will engage in physical aggression against another person…” (FAQs on Violent Video Games and Other Media Violence, 2009) Clearly, Anderson notes in his article how the level of aggression is a direct relation to the amount and intensity of the video games they play. It also teaches that violence is an acceptable method of problem-solving and a necessary way to attain a goal. According to a 2009 study, youth who pla...
It's a surprising fact that 90 percent of young boys and 40 percent of young girls play video games on a regular basis. The real question is how many of those young people play violent video games, and of those, how many have become more violent as a result? Although some people don't believe that violent video games are harmful to young boys and girls, they are harmful because they cause more aggressive behavior and they desensitize.
Anderson, Craig Alan, Katherine E. Buckley, and Douglas A. Gentile. Violent Video Game Effects On Children And Adolescents: Theory, Research, And Public Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
The first reason that violent video games make people more violent is that people have been killed because of violent video game players. Evidence of this is from CNN news showing that someone killed another person due to violent video game, “An 8-year-old Louisian boy intentionally shot and killed his elderly caregiver after playing a violent video game, authorities say.” This evidence proves that even a boy at the age of 8 would even kill someone due to playing a violent video game.
Flanagan explains throughout her article that out of the American youth today, 97% of them play violent video games for at least two hours per week. Also in the article “Imaginary Guns Don’t Kill People, either” by Scott Shackford, he explains that since violent video games have become such a popular activity, it is considered surprising if one hasn’t played one by now. Violent video games show teens that shooting people is acceptable. In “Is video game violence bad?” by Christopher J. Ferguson, he states that the trigger of violent video games causes at least some of aggressive actions that happen throughout the world, including school shootings. For example, in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, two students carried weapons into the school and proceeded to kill thirteen people. Unsurprisingly, the roots to their actions were speculated to be prior bullying experiences and violent video games (History.com). Also, Ferguson states that violent video games are correlated with mass shootings across the nation. Teens that have been influenced by violence are a dangerous factor to themselves, classmates, friends, and
Research has found that linking violent video games to violent or aggressive behavior is unwarranted and unnecessary. It has been shown that there is yet to be any proof of this revelation being true, and even more proving it to be false. Statistics show that “sales of video games from 1995-2008 have more than quadrupled, while the arrest rate for juvenile murders fell 71.9% and the arrest rate for all juvenile violent crimes declined 49.3% in this same period.”(Akhaven) Another study done in 2005 states that “the US had 2,279 murders committed by teenagers compared to 73 in Japan while per capita video game sales were $5.20 in the US compared to $47 in Japan.”(Goldfein) A few people have went far enough to be able to say through their research that a lot of things said about violence in video games are linked to aggressive behavior is completely false. A duo of people have even stated that “a casual link
... methodologies and the intrusion of ideology and scientific dogma” (Ferguson 11). Violent Video Games do not cause increased violent tendencies in youth and adolescents due to the fact violent video games have been around for years and in those years violence caused by teens have actually been dropping rather than increasing. Also, violent video games have been shown through research that the negatives are highly outweighed by the positives. Also, with the introduction of interactive gaming there are a new range of possibilities for violent video games. Such as sending a message to children about healthy activities by getting them off of the couch. So hopefully in five years violent video games will have moved to full interactive gaming so that it looks more real-life, but more importantly that it will still be a form of media that helps to relive personal stress.
The question is, “Do violent video games influence children to act aggressively?” and “Can repetitive killing train a person to be violent himself?” Although the violence in these video games is fictional, research has proven the violence to lead to more aggressive behavior in children. Violent acts depicted in these games allow young children to believe that killing and fighting is acceptable and fun.
Violent video games are special games, which negatively influences to the attitude and behavior. These video games are popular between children and teenagers. Since 1980-s years violent games are in political discussion. Because when teenagers usually play violent video games, they are becoming aggressive and then they face with psychological problems. For this, some people claim that violent games are harmful for society and they affect to behavior and health.