The shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado killing thirteen students and teachers shocked the world. “They were video gamers who seemed to be acting out some dark digital fantasy. It was as if all that exposure to computerized violence gave them the idea to go on a rampage – or at least fueled their urges” (Carey 1). The shooters of this incident learned their deadly skills from video games. Seventy percent of children ages eight to eighteen have access to violent video games at their home. “Boys who play Teen or Mature-rated games for a minimum of 40 minutes a day may witness over 180 incidents of aggression per day, or 5,400 incidents per month”(Smith, S.L., Lachlan, K.A., & Tamborini, R). Children that play violent video games at such a young age and experiencing such violent actions will start to increase in aggressive thoughts, feelings, and aggressive behavior.
Children playing such harsh games forty minutes a day will result their mind to alter. “A dose of violent gaming makes people act more rudely than they would otherwise” (These games have a huge result on the user’s brain. “Violent games activate their anger center while dampening the brain’s conscience causing them to become more violent” (“Children and Violent Video Games” 1). Teenage brains are in the middle of growing, so it is very penetrable for video games to have a major impact on the child’s mind. “Playing violent games correlates to children being less caring and helpful toward their peers” (“Children and Violent Video Games” 1). After these games get into the players mind, they began to plot disasters: shootings, bombings, and theft.
“Negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over duration of time” (“More Playing Time E...
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...le killed” (Steinberg 1). Theft also happens because of video games. There was one case where a man stole a car, and stated he thought it was tolerable since he did it in a video game.
Children that play violent video games at such a young age will have a bad effect on them. “Not everybody who plays these games will become murderers, just as not everybody who smoke gets cancer” (Quittner, J). Every day people play with these games will have an effect on the way they look at things, they will begin to have aggressive thoughts, and they will begin to have a change in behavior. On average boys spend thirteen hours per week and girls spend five hours on video games. This amount of time a week will have a major effect of these children minds. “Violent video games effect people. They increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and physical arousal symptoms.”(Rollins 1)
At this day in age we bask in the luxury of having easy access to advanced technology at our disposal. From the World Wide Web, to cell phones, music, movies and video games the human race has thought of any and everything to keep us entertained. Over the years studies have shown reasonable concerns regarding the long-term effects of video games. These games can desensitize gamers to real life violence, which is usually seen in the younger crowd. The studies especially hit on the games containing player-on-player violence. Though these games are extremely entertaining and can get kids to settle down for a while, if not properly supervised, they can produce adverse effects. Other studies have shown that video games can be used as way to yield positive outcomes such as, good problem solving skills, cooperation in a group and the ability to flow. Although there has been psychological research on children learning through the actions of others some believe that children are automatically able to distinguish between what is just a game and what is reality. The longer they are allowed on their game system the more they become convinced that their games are real. Some researchers believe violent video games can channel the aggression of the child but the parents are to blame for what happens to the child after playing an excessive amount over a period of time. Children can become preoccupied with these violent video games which have been proven to be the cause of poor social skills, uncontrollable aggression and a false reality.
Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Adam Lanza, Steven Phillip Kazmierczak, and Seung-Hui Cho all have a few things in common, they are all school shooters that have killed and injured a combined total of 149 human beings and are or were believed to be avid violent video game players, who also committed suicide immediately after carrying out their attacks. To the public, school shooters seem to share a direct connection to playing violent video games and that playing them leads to violent behavior. Violent videogames have become a highlight in the media and national debate for this very reason but, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of a causative connection between participants of violent videogames manifesting violent behaviors. The media provides biased information that misleads citizens into believing that said link is well established and accepted. I argue that parents should make responsible and well informed decisions in regards to their child’s videogame activities in spite of the lack of scientific research.
On December 14th 2012, just 11 days before Christmas, an awful tragedy happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This awful event left a lot of unanswered questions and rumors about that day. The reason for that is because the shooter killed himself after shooting twenty young children and six adults. This tragedy open the eyes of everyone; made you want to hug your loves one just a little tighter, appreciate what you still have and never take a day for granted. Even our president Barack Obama felt the pain of all those who lost their loved ones in this event. He insured everyone that he will do everything in his power to make sure a tragedy like this will not happen again. However, did you know that there have been over 44 school shootings since the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting? I know as a future teacher and mother I want to make sure my children are safe in this world and even at school. I want to be able to make a difference in this issue and have some knowledge to have I can do that. The society should understand what really happen during the Sandy Hook event, the reasons behind why school shootings/violence are rapidly increasing each year, and have some knowledge about what we, as a society, can do to help in order for us to start seeing a decrease of these events.
Barlett, C. P., Branch, O., Rodeheffer, C., & Harris, R. (2009). How long do the short-term violent video game effects last? Aggressive Behavior, 35, 1–12. doi:10.1002/ab.20301
Whether violent media content leads to real-life violence is always debatable. And in recent years, school shootings have made video games a new focus of public concern and scientific research. In public opinion, video games cause more aggression in comparison to traditional violent media contents because video games have more features of interactivity, "due to the active engagement and participation of players" (Hummer and Wang et al. 137). But more and more reports tell us that video games are not the main cause of school shooting issues; rather it is the negligence of parents, schools, and communities.
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 are widely popular as a form of entertainment for young children and teenagers in the United States, and many of these games contain forms of violence. Because this causes exposure to such graphic images for many children, there has been a concern that these violent forms of entertainment affect these children. Numerous studies conducted by groups of psychologists have been directed on this particular issue, leading to evidence both for and against this claim. This is an issue which parents should acknowledge, as it greatly impacts their children. Therefore, parents must become aware of the issue of violence in video games and monitor their children’s access to such games because history as well as numerous studies and statistics to have shown that they have negative effects on children, causing desensitization due to the exposure to such intense images.
For many years, many people have linked the increased violent and aggressive behavior in teenagers and children to violent video games for two main reasons. Video games are very addictive and gamers can become very violent and aggressive when someone tells them to stop playing and can spark the violence in people who already have aggressive behavior. Such examples of violence addictions were in the cases of Daniel Petric and a thirteen-year old that were very addictive to video games and had already aggressive behavior. Seventeen year old Daniel murdered his mother, Susan Petric, “after she being denied him access to Halo 3” (Massoud). If that didn’t sound horrifying, a “13-year-old boy murdered an 81-year-old for money to fund his online gaming addiction” (Massoud). We can’t deny the fact that these two cases of game addiction prove the argument, but everyone should ask themselves these questions. If parents did know about the viole...
The allegation that videogames cause violent behavior in children has been present as long as videogames themselves. Some researchers said that the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, was one intense gamer. “Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech Shooter was seen by his roomates as odd because he never joined them in video games.”(Beresin) This debate will continue to go on in this country as long as there are horrific crimes that occur. There is much written in the research regarding this issue, and many differing views. The research that is presented in the next few paragraphs supports the theory that it is not the graphic video games that produce aggressive behavior, but other factors in a child’s life that create violent actions.
On April 20, 1999 in a suburban town called Littleton, Colorado one high school was about to have one of the most tragic and deadly days in US history. Columbine High School was in the forefront of this tragedy. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, opened fire on their fellow classmates and teacher. These two students cut the lives short of thirteen students and one teacher. They then turned their guns onto themselves leaving the nation with no answers as to why? They did leave videotape. This videotape contained Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planning their attack on Columbine High School. This piece of evidence showed two students that were not part of the "in crowd". They were outsiders, losers, as some would consider them. They were taunted, humiliated, and disrespected by their classmates. But how can two intelligent students do something as deadly as they did. Was it because they had bad parents? Not at all, they even went out of their way to save their parents the blame by repeatedly saying that it was not their fault that they were about to do what they did. So what was the cause of all this tragedy and how can it be stopped so it can never happen again in our middle schools and high schools? Elliot Aronson a social psychologist wrote a book called Nobody Left to Hate, Teaching Compassion After Columbine. This book represents his ideas on how to use certain strategies to have a better school environment that teaches compassion, tolerance while putting education in a winning situation.
The Columbine High School Massacre happened on April 20, 1999. The Shooters were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two senior students who wanted to destroy the world they lived in. Their motives:
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)
One article points out that video games have a big impact on children’s lives and that many of the games played are violent. Researchers have found that “nearly all children spend time playing video games” and studies have found that “8th graders spent an average of 17 hours per week playing video games” (Tamborini 336). Moreover, 68% of the most popular video games contain violence (Tamborini 336). So it is clear that many children have access to violent video games and they have a big impact on their lives simply because of the amount of time spent playing them.
Over the past 30 years, playing video games has become one of the most popular hobbies worldwide. Not only has the video game industry become a multi-billion dollar industry, but it has attracted people from all age types. While video games today are played by both kids and adults, there are many issues being raised regarding the effects of video games. More particular, is the effect that violent video games may be having on children. Some critics argue that video games are direct indicators of child aggression while video game supporters argue that there is no direct link between child aggression and violent video games. While many people have their own personal stances, this issue is unique because it is unfolding everyday. Scientists and researchers all over the world are continuously doing research regarding the effects of video games on children. Even though this remains a field of uncertainty for researchers, parents should definitely be involved in being aware of what it is that they’re children are playing when they play video games.
Several studies display that video games with violent content are related to more hostile behavior in teens. This is a concern because most of the popular video games contain violence. Part of the upsurge in aggressive behavior is connected to the amount of time children are permitted