It is Just a Game

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Recommended: The effects of video games on youth

In 2008, 97 percent of children twelve to seventeen years of age played video games. Whenever people hear of a school shooting or any act of violence at all, they tend to blame everything on the video games. They say that these video games are what cause these people to go chaotic and that all video games are bad and only have bad effects on these children, teens, and young adults. The statistics, however, show that video games, violent or not, are not the reason that this generation is said to be very violent.
Video games cannot cause children to become violent because crime rates are dropping. According to ProCon.org, “…a majority of the research on the topic is deeply flawed and that no causal relationship has been found between video games and social violence.” (22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth Violence). Total violent juvenile crimes have dropped by 36 percent between 1995 and 2008. While the crime rates plummet, the video game industry profited 11.7 billion dollars in sales (22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth Violence). Since crime rates are dropping and video games’ sells are rising, people cannot say that children are becoming more violent due to playing too many games.
Not all video games are violent. Most of the time anyone who blames today’s problems on the games tend to expect that those games are all violent. Only 16 percent of video games that were sold in 2008 were rated M for mature; 45 percent were rated E for everyone. Also in 2008, only 10.9 percent of those games sold were actually shooters (22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth Violence). Most of the games out there are intended for children and do not have anything to do with violence or profanity, they could even be educational. Most of t...

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... video games selling more than ever; anti-gamers do not have much ground to stand on. There are so many other things that can encourage a person to kill people or cause a child to become so violent and out of control. There are just too many factors that contribute to this generation of kids and teens. Video games just are not the reason for the world to be so cruel.

Works Cited
Medical Xpress. “Kids who play interactive video games have better motor skills” medicalxpress.com. 24 Jul. 2012.
Patterson, Sean. “Video Games Don’t Make Teens Violent, Shows Study | WebProNews” WebProNews.com. 27 Aug. 2013. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.
ProCon.org. "22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth Violence" ProCon.org. 18 Feb. 2010. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.
Ricci, Lawrence R., MD. “Pediatric Advisor: Family Violence: Effects on Children” childrenshealthnetwork.org. 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.

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