Do Video Games Make Our Youth More Violent?

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Technological Controversy Assignment

Video games have begun consume a large portion of the time our youth has and has begun to increasingly play a role as big as family and even a social life, but the question is that are the video games that they are playing begun to affect their behaviour in a violent way. Over the years video games have evolved from a simple form of entertainment where two players hit a two dimensional ball back and forth with one another until someone misses; to a variety of diverse and complex games. These games can incorporate many themes, such as: education, action, adventure, simulation, RPG (role playing games) and many others, in these games a players can build lives for their characters; use them to engage in social activities and even experience things they could not imagine to do in real life. These experience could range from bowling to learning how to operate a plain to even exploring space, at the same time this range includes war, murder and the use of a dangerous weapons.

Many people believe that because video game use has become so wide spread and most of the top ten highest grossing video games consist of some form of violence have begun to affect the behaviour of our youth. On the other hand people believe that video games do not encourage violent behaviour in youth and it varies depending on each person’s case. Many studies have been conducted by both doctors as well as video game companies. Video game companies use these studies to support the idea that video games are not bad for you and do not cause a negative influence on the behaviour of youth; where as doctors (i.e. psychologists, therapists, etc.) conduct these studies to support their claim that video games encourage violent beh...

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... a person is feeling depressed or angry they will play a game to uplift there mood or get out of boredom. Later on in the study concluded that “No evidence was provided that short-term exposure to vio-lent video games either increased or decreased aggressive behavior in the laboratory.”3

Another study that’s was conducted over 11,000 children was published in the British Medical Journal, that showed video games are not responsible for violence or behavioral problems caused in youth from young as the age of five. The study revealed that children who were exposed to video games from the age of five had shown no effect on their behaviour as well as emotional issues. The results from this study reinforce the idea that video games do not encourage violence or have a negative impact on youth, while also reinforcing the idea that they are a positive force in the world.

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