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Recommended: Video game violence effects on youth

It is common now days to see violence in the media, especially in video games. In today’s society, M-rated (Mature) games are the most popular due to the excessive amounts of gore, blood, and overall violence. Despite this, does video game violence have an effect on real world violence? A lot of people say that it does affect real world violence; however, there have been studies on the issue that say otherwise.

In recent years, video game violence has been taking the blame for societies violent actions. In the media, school shootings are often said to be the outcome of playing video games with violence. Twelve years ago, a massacre took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. On April 20 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered the school wearing long, black trench coats that concealed their guns. They opened fire on the school killing 12 students and wounding 24 others (Krotoski). Afterwards, they committed suicide.

After the massacre, everybody wanted to know why it happened and what their motive was. The media went searching for answers and eventually pinned the blame on the game, Doom, a bloody first person shooter. The game was controversial at the time due to the excessive amounts of gore. It was found that Harris and Klebold were avid players of the game, to the point that they have been often labeled to have an unhealthy obsession (Krotoski). The media quickly took advantage of this piece of information and began dishing out answers as to why they did it.

In 2004, the FBI along with their team of psychiatrists and psychologist conducted research on the issue. After looking through all the evidence that was collected during the case, the team came to the conclusion that Harris was a psychopath while Kle...

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...-198. Web. 21 April 2011 http://www.grandtheftchildhood.com/GTC/Research_Papers_files/Olson_M-games%20and%20aggression.pdf

Jenkins, Henry. “Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked”. Impact of Gaming. Web. 21 April 2011. http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html

"Violent video games and young people." Harvard Mental Health Letter 1 Oct. 2010. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.

"Breeding evil? Defending video games." The Economist [US] 6 Aug. 2005: 9US. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.

White, Nancy J., “Virtual Violence Shown to Boost Brain Power.”Toronto Star [CAN]5 Feb. 2011. Student Research Center. Web.21 Apr. 2011.

“Could Violent Video Games Reduce Rather Than Increase Violence?”ScienceDaily. 15 May 2008. Web. 1 May 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080514213432.htm

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