Vvgs Cause Aggression Case Study

Aggression can be an outcome of numerous different factors, yet many still believe that VVGs alone are to account for growing aggression. However, if this was the case, would there not be a spike in the violent crimes committed by those who, might, play video games? Not only do the amount of homicides executed after a release of a popular video game consistently decrease (Stein), but as several researchers pointed out "90% of young males play video games. Finding that a young man who committed a violent crime also played a popular video game . . . is as pointless as pointing out that the criminal also wore socks" (Markey and French). This phrase summarizes the major downfalls of the hypothesis that VVGs cause aggression, but it is also supported

This study occurred in the University of Oxford and the University of Rochester with the purpose of examining the effects of video games by having volunteers play a range of different video games while the researchers altered the difficulty of the games. The objective of this experiment was to prove whether or not difficult, but not necessarily violent, video games can lead to spikes in one’s aggression. The result? When a participant in the study could not master the games control in about twenty minutes, increased levels of aggression would often follow, no matter if the participant partook in a violent game or not. In hopes of shedding light on this new hypothesis, scientists conducted an experiment where volunteers played a game known as Half Life 2; however, the game was modified into several different versions. One, being violent, had the participants shoot at monster-like creatures, while the other, instead of shooting, had players tag the creatures causing them to “gently” evaporate (Vincent). Whether or not the player participated in the violent version of Half Life 2 was irrelevant, yet whether or not the contributor got to see the tutorial effected their aggression. The co-author of this study, Richard M. Ryan, came to the conclusion that “aggression stems from feeling not in control or incompetent while playing. If the structure of a game or the design of the controls thwarts enjoyment, it is this, not the violent content, that seems to drive feelings of aggression” (Vincent). This theory easily explains why people tend to feel aggressive after losing something as low-tech as a game of