The Great Video Game Controversy
The controversy of video games has been along for quite a while since the humble beginning of Pong 1 with people arguing that it was “unnatural” and a “lunatic's” idea with others saying that it would “be the beginning of a revolution”. More recently the argument is that it causes aggression and affect your brain, so what sparked this debate and which side is most correct? The side I have taken is that video games do not negatively affect your brain or cause violence.
Violent video games allow players to release their stress and anger in the game, leading to less real world aggression, studies have shown that this is very true for example once in Texas were told to rate how angry they were by some friends
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The US Surgeon General's list of risk factors for youth violence included abusive parents, poverty, neglect, neighborhood crime, being male, substance use, and mental health problems, but not video games. An Aug. 2014 peer-reviewed study published in Psychology of Popular Media Culture pointed out that "As more people have been exposed to violent video games, serious and deadly assaults have not increased." A 2014 peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Communication also found that as video game playing increased, there was less youth violence. Researchers say that violent people often seek out violent video games, and that the time they spend playing the games is taking them off the streets, leading to decreased crime this is known as the incapacitation effect. Gun violence is less prevalent in countries with high video game use video game sales were $5.20 in the United States compared to $47 in Japan. In 2005, the United States had 2,279 murders committed by teenagers 27.9 per million residents compared to 73 in Japan 3.1 per million A study of the countries representing the 10 largest video game markets internationally found no correlation between playing video games and gun-related killings. Even though US gun violence is high, the nine other countries with the highest video game usage have some of the lowest violent crime rates and eight of those countries spend more on …show more content…
Fisher-Price toy company stated: "Pretending is more than play: it's a major part of a child's development. Fantasy not only develops creative thinking, it's also a way for children to deal with situations and problems that concern them." This would also apply to video games but only if used in moderation for instance in a study groups of teenagers played three games the lord of the rings riders of rohan, star wars the force unleashed two, and halo wars. Afterwards participants would be asked to tell the story of their game based on their character's point of view, 76% of the people responded with using I instead of Déorwine, Galen, or Spartan
The author primarily appeals to the audience using logos. He brings statistics and data from research studies throughout the essay. He either provides background information on why the studies are misleading or just presents a fact. For instance, “According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General 's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure” (Jenkins, “Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked”). He provides data like this through the essay. He is strongly trying to appeal to the audience’s sense of logic and
In 2008, 97% of twelve to seventeen year olds in America played video games, thus fueling the domestic video games by $11.7 million. Ten out of the top twenty best-selling video games contain violence. Many of these violent video games have been accused of incidents that include crime, bullying, and behavior problems. As the popularity of violent video games increase, more people become victims of behavior problems such as depression, aggressiveness, and addiction. Although video games were intentionally created for entertainment purposes, through studies and experiments it has been established that they are factors of behavior problems because of the active interaction people demonstrate while playing video games.
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.
Research has shown that immediately after playing a violent video game, kids can have aggressive thoughts, angry feelings and physiological effects such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. In addition, studies that survey large populations of kids on their game-playing habits and measure aggressive personality traits or self-reported aggressive acts — physical fights, arguments with teachers — often find an association between games and aggression.
According to the American Psychological Association, there is not sufficient evidence to prove that violent video games are the cause of violence and crime in real life. The only correlation between violence in video games and real life, is that those that play violent video games are slightly more aggressive, not violent. More studies and research is needed to determine a better path and to create more knowledge on the subject.
Lately there have been increasing amounts of people that say that violent video games are causing a number violent actions. To some extent this is true, but there are also studies that say games help people release their aggression in an appropriate way. I would tend to agree with the later.
... 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.
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 demonstrate aggression and violent behavior.
An article on Procon.org says, “A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that children, especially boys, play video games as a means of managing their emotions: "61.9% of boys played to 'help me relax,' 47.8% because 'it helps me forget my problems,' and 45.4% because 'it helps me get my anger out.". If anything, shooting games help people more than hurt people because they get to release their anger and problems on Fictional characters. PIxels on a screen instead of real people. Isn’t that better? Some might say that casual players that aren’t angry could become mad from the game either by hackers, “campers” or the difficulty. However, there are no studies from reliable sources that say those reasons have caused actual violence. There have been many fake or unreliable articles about this. Wouldn’t parents encourage their kids to play a shooter game if they got angry? According to them they shouldn't because they are violent, causing this anger that people have to be used on someone else.
There have been so many experiments and studies to try and figure out if video games have a negative or positive effect on our children. A growing body of research is linking violent video game play to aggressive cognitive, attitudes and behaviors (D.A. Gentile, 2004). The 'Path of the 'Path of the 'Path of the 'Path of the 'Path of the 'Path of the 'Path of the 'Path of Video games can obviously be dangerous for our children, causing aggression, bad performances in school and obesity. Although we cant blame all of these problems on the use of video games, there have been many studies to prove so.... ...
Whether they be first-person shooters like Call of Duty, sports games like Madden or Fifa, racing games like Forza or Mariokart, or even games and apps on your phones, there are quite a bit of gamers in here. According to the Entertainment Software Association, about 59% of American play some sort of video game, so gaming isn’t all that uncommon (Entertainment Software Association, 2014). As such, there must be some sort of effect on the audience of this growing form of entertainment.
A review in 2004 did not show a clear relation between video game violence and real life violence. The study found that for every 1% increase in violent video game sales there was a .03% decrease in real life violence. (Fournis,
Violent video games do not cause behavior problems. It is possible that some people have weak health issues as they are on video games or technology too long instead of getting good enough sleep, eating healthy foods, and needing to get out more to have fun with family and friends. Plus, when players are feeling tired or anxious, they simply need to stop playing and take a break from video games for a while, at least until they feel better. Another possible solution is when a person needs to take a break from playing video games, they can spend their time outside with nature instead of on a video game.
“90% of pediatricians and 67% of parents agreed or strongly agreed that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior among children” ("Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?”). Pediatrics and parents are aware that kids that play violent video games see a change in their behavior. Many cases they see the kids with anger problems and causing them to do violent acts. Violent video games have been around for many years where some older titles, such as ‘Mortal Kombat’ and 'Grand Theft Auto’ both are some of the most controversial ones. The video game industry has been growing and with the large amounts of violent video games being produced. “Total US sales of video game hardware and software increased 204% from 1994 to
My hypothesis for this study is that video games are not solely responsible for detrimental behaviors such as violence. Also, in regards to the other research questions, video games are only portrayed in a negative light because of their accessibility. It’s an interesting thing to note that video games portrayal as a negative influence to children didn’t really lift off until certain events triggered this point of view, mainly during a series of “rampage shootings at sch...