Violence in Videogames

Despite the accusations from the media, video game violence does not lead to aggressive behavior in the teens of today. The youth with pre-existing conditions show no increase in aggression as well as the healthy teens in the results from Journal of Youth and Adolescence (Springer). The Journal of Youth and Adolescence disproves what the media believes the games actually cause. There are specifically 33 independent tests that researched the effects of aggression and the relation of violence in video games. The group tested 3,033 volunteers for increased aggression, but the tests came back with a significantly positive effect of these violent games (Weller 5). With the effect of causing it's players to have their aggression lowered and calming them greatly, it is a big blow to the media's point of view of these games. Sadly, there are a few teens who commit mass murders and violent video games seem like an easy target to blame as to the motivation behind their actions. Those teens are not healthy, they have a psychological problem that messes with their head and makes them think differently about the world and where they belong (Twemlow 41).

Understanding what these games do to teens requires months, sometimes years of testing and researching to get all the information on these effects. Ferguson and Olson studied 377 American children, approximately thirteen years of age, from various ethnic groups who had clinically elevated attention deficit or depressive symptoms. The children were part of an existing federally funded project that examines the effect of video game violence on youths (Heidelberg). Selecting different ethnic groups and ages broadens the types of outcomes the testing receives and helps get a more accurate result...

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...e of violence and aggression among teens. The healthy teens, as well as the teens with attention deficit or depressive symptoms, show no signs of increases in aggression. Instead a calming affect that reduces aggression. Controversy over violent video games continue and therefore more and more tests are being conducted and more accurate results are being found. The tests will further say it has a calming affect among its players, unfortunately, the media will not stop wrongly accusing the violent games. Keeping the media around are the teens that can not grasp reality and decide to kill peers for their own idealistic views. These teens have more than a small problem, having big issues like that gives innocent companies a bad name and ruins their reputation. Violence in video games will always be there, but coming out and creating violence in the player is nonsense.