Do Violent Video Games Cause Aggression And Violence?

Romeo Vitelli, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in Toronto, Canada, cites “A new research study published in the journal Psychology of Media Culture takes a comprehensive look at different risk factors of violence, including playing video games. Whitney de Camp of Western Michigan University used data taken from the 2008 Delaware School Survey to assess violence risk in 6567 Grade Eight children. Students were asked about violent and pre-violent behaviour, i.e., “hit someone with the intention of hurting them,” “take some kind of weapon to school or to a school event,” and “carry a gun when you’re not in school.” “According to the study results, playing violent video games didn 't appear to be related to any of the violent behaviours that the researchers examined. For both males and females, the two factors most successful in predicting risk of hitting someone in the previous year were seeing or hearing violence at home and being high in sensation-seeking.” “Overall, this research showed that the presumed danger of violent video game playing was largely exaggerated, at least in the eighth-graders looked at in this study. Other factors such as seeing or hearing violence at home, sensation seeking, and low parental monitoring or attachment were far more likely to predict violence in adolescents.” According to ProCon.org in the article, Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?, the U.S. Surgeon General’s list of risk factors for youth violence include abusive parents, poverty, neglect, neighborhood crime, being male, substance abuse and mental health problems, but not video

The viewing of violent video games causes kids to become bullies. The viewing of violent video games causes kids to get used to playing them, and act more violently in real life. “The

Video games nowadays are all about violence, mature content, and suggestive themes. In “Is video game violence bad,” written by Christopher Ferguson, the author proposes there is no correlation between violent video games and

Another case who was perpetrated by the influence of the media was, the mass shooting at the screening of the Batman movie in Colorado in July, 2012 with a result of twelve dead and fifty nine injured people, “James Eagan Holmes as he identifies himself as the JOKER all this has reignited debates in the psychiatric community about media violence and its effects on human behavior”. (Blair, J. 2014 p.39). Adam Lanza, 20 years young, shy, antisocial and a fan of ultra-violent video games, went to his mother's room on Friday morning and killed four bullets as she slept. Then he loaded a semiautomatic rifle, three pistols and several magazines, and went to primary school, where he killed 20 children six and seven years and six adults, before taking his own life when he was surrounded by police, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012. During recent years, the video game industry has boomed, as video games of all kinds have become very popular among young people. Several recent studies suggest that playing violent video games leads to both short-term and long-term increases in aggression-related outcomes for game players, for example, Anderson and Dill (2000) found a correlation between violent video game play and several indices of aggression, including delinquency and self-reported aggressive

In his article “Shooting in the Dark,” Benedict Carey argues that video games depict explicit or violent content stimulate aggressive behavior within gamers. He argues that video games like Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, and Battlefield 3 increase aggressive urges and that exposure to these games leads to real-world hostilities. He mentions incidents like the young men who opened fire at Columbine High School and at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado—video gamers who seemed to be acting out some “dark digital fantasy”—to uphold his position. He believes a dose of violent video games can cause people to act “more rudely” than they would otherwise. Although he describes how violent video games may stimulate aggressive or hostile behavior, Carey’s argument can be challenged because there are other factors that can influence individuals to act violent and hostile. Moreover, it is indefinite whether violent video

“As many as 97% of US kids age 12-17 play video games, contributing to the $21.53 billion domestic video game industry. More than half of the 50 top-selling video games contain violence”. (Do Violent Video

Violent video games have been blamed for everything from bullying to school shootings. Critics of these video games believe they cause people to commit violent acts in real life. These critics, mainly comprised of parents and other responsible adults, don’t agree with what the video games portray. Others say the video games cause less violence and are an outlet for anger and stress. Although violent video games have violent actions in them, teenagers should be able to play violent video games because there isn’t enough evidence to prove they make teens more aggressive, it could prevent violence, and violent video games are a fun and relaxing way to relieve stress and anger.

The psychology and motives of a violent criminal can vary greatly. Many factors can shape and break a person’s mind, but a single subject is often blamed for violence across the world. Video games, which are meant for entertainment and recreation, are used as a scapegoat for destructive wrongdoings endlessly. However, I do not believe that digital worlds cause mental problems in the physical world, but rather these games cause no impact mentally, with evidence from high level studies and primary sources.

Many reports of teen shootings have made their way to the news headlines and reports, and many studies try to link them to violent video games or explain why violent video games aren’t the cause of these shootings.

The article “Do Video Games Kill” written by Karen Sternheimer responds to one of the most sought-after question; are video games the cause for “young killers”? (220) Sternheimer believes the influence of video games on today’s youth maybe spiraling out of control. She focuses most of the blame on the media, politicians and the Juvenile Justice System. Sternheimer suggests that there are other factors to blame for violent behavior: poverty, the neighborhood, unemployment, family violence, divorced parents and mental illness (218). While juvenile crimes have declined, and personal backgrounds effect actions, it cannot be proven that video game violence has no to little effect on America’s youth.

All in all the research and officials say that violent video games affect how children, teenagers and young adults act. Evidence shows that several of the school shootings were done by young people that played violent video games. Some of these were The Columbine shooters, Sandy Hook school shooting and the Virginia Tech shooting. Not letting young people play violent video games may stop young people from being

More and more kids are playing video and computer games — especially ultra-violent ones that are top sellers. Research shows that children are also spending increasing amounts of time playing them: an average of 13 hours per week for boys and five hours for girls. A recent content analysis by the research organization Children Now shows that a majority of video games include violence and about half of the violent incidents would result in serious injuries or death in the "real" world.

Most of the bad effects of video games because of their violence they contain. Thus children who play more violent and dangerous video games are more likely to have increased of aggressive thoughts, behavior, feelings and decreased in prosocial helping. The effect of violence video games in children is worsened by the games’ interactive nature. For the repeated cases of violence in video games, the child is in control of the violence and experiences in his own eye by killing, kicking, stabbing and shooting in games. Too much playing of violent video game will make the kid socially isolated. Some video games teach the children the wrong values. Violent behavior, revenge and aggression are rewarded. These games confuse the children between the reality and fantasy. Some of the major negative effects of playing video games are discussed below:

Does virtual violence lead to actual violence? As we all know at this age of sophisticated technology and information, children are more exposed to video gaming compared to the past decades. As a result, video gaming industry has gained tremendous growth since coming into the market in the 1980s. This is because of the increased number of its consumers, especially children and teenagers. Research shows that at least 83% of children in the US aged between 8-12 years are involved in video gaming once a month. This elevated number of video gaming has had its fair share of effects on its consumers. For instance, video games have positively influenced children to work together in completing various tasks, and often improve a child’s thinking capacity, especially through solving puzzles (Anderson et al, 2007). However, the contentious issue has been the effects of violent games on children, which are often negative to their well-being. In short, violent video games increase the aggressiveness of a child, and may eventually cause mental ill health.

As we know not all video games contain violent contents, but most of them are violent and mentally dangerous. Some researches admit that violent games may cause adolescents to become tremendous. Studies showed that video games increase psychological awakening, it could also increase aggressive behavior, emotions and thoughts and finally let teenagers lose the sense of helping others. All these effects will be carried by aggressive young people. It’s true that video games are violent, but aggressive adolescents are more likely to be more attracted to it. Some games reward players for doing violent actions, so this will affect them negatively, letting them think that violence is normal. A study on two groups showed that the group that plays violent ones, is more likely to think that using marijuana and drinking alcohol is normal and legal, also cheating in many ways would lead them to the right way too.