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.
In this essay, I will be analysing the article by Christopher Ferguson entitled Stop Blaming Violent Video Games. Video games have been at the front of social and political controversy since their popularity increase in the early 1990's. With the use of scientific research data, and the common misconception that society makes in connection with violent video games and young adults committing aggressive crimes. Ferguson demonstrates a clear and concise argument to the fallacy of video games being linked to heightened aggressive behavior and violent tendencies.
In the essay, “Do Video Games Kill?”(214), Karen Sternheimer discusses the wide spread idea that videogames are the cause for “young killers”(220) . Sternheimer opposes the idea that violent video games produce criminal behavior in young people. The influence video games have on young people is spiraling out of control, according to Sternheimer. The blame for this spiral is the media. The influence the media has on video games focuses on the stereotype that the white middle-class male video gamer is more susceptible to violent behavior.
“Effects of Media Violence on Children” is an article written by Abel Mwema. Mwema argues that media or video games with negative content solicit kids to mimic those bad behaviors. She states that everyday kids are becoming more exposed to material that would induce them to violent acts. Many studies are mentioned to support her claim on this matter. One of them would be the analysis from the psychologist Brad Bushman, as he states, “Studies show that virtual fighting is just likely to make a kid act aggressively as is drug abuse, a troubled home life, or poverty” (34).
In the last 10 years many things have changed in our life, especially after the electronic renaissance. Not only social media effects our life but video games do as well, many people believe that these games effects are bad to health, but many of these people think that these games can change people, make them go crazy or even killers, specially violent video games, they think that the game would turn into reality. Although they have point, a lot of people disagree with them. I think that video games don’t promote aggression even the violent one. The society has bigger problems to solve and comparing them to video games, I feel that the video games problem is a silly one, people kill each other because of the wrong polices, not a silly game.
Are violent video games responsible for real-life violence? Are children who have grown up playing graphic games more aggressive than their peers? Did violent video games inspire mass killings, usually done by young adults, such as the Newtown massacre? Scientists and psychologists have been studying violent video games and their connection to aggression and violence in the real world for decades. These questions have recently resurfaced after Vice President Joe Biden stated that research should be conducted on violence and violent video games after the recent controversial debate over gun control.
The number of violent video game-related massacres is on the rise as new, more realistic, bloody and gory games are soaring in popularity during recent years ("Issue Overview: Do video games cause violence?" 2). The issue of whether violent video games are a cause of real life violence or desensitize children to blood or gore first arose around 1976 when the game, Death Race, was first released. The game was based on driving cars recklessly down a road and running over human like stick- figures. People were conflicted on whether this game was just for fun or was too inappropriate for young children, so protesters ran the game out of production ("Issue Overview: Do violent video games cause violence?" par.
In the story “Violent Video Games Do Not Cause Violence” Eric Kain givesmanyfacts on who plays these gamesand what peoplehave said about violent video games,their beliefsand more. Kain gave some reasonable evidence he came up with himself like what mental conditions the people have rather than the video games they were playing. He spoke about who plays these violent games and how popular they are which is important because the people who play this are a main factor in what is happening. Moreover, He also spoke about the government and how they are reacting to this. Kain gave some interesting evidence on what our president said about it andwhat judges believe should happen.
I believe that violent television shows, movies, and video games do contribute to the violent behavior. By asking people who watch these things or play these violent games you can find out that they all have done at least a bad thing from watching violent movies or playing violent games. Their are a lot of reasons for why violent television shows, movies, and video games contribute to violent behavior. Here are some examples why. An example of a type of crimson video game would first person shooters.
Are video games the cause for violence in America ? Many people in the United States of America believe that videogames are one of the leading causes of violence. I believe that violence has been around in America longer than video games so it obviously does not link to each other. If anything I believe that video games help young kids improve their hand eye coordination.
This evidence shows that video games cause a rise in potential aggressive behavior. Overall, graphic imagery, or violence displayed in videogames affects one’s ability to control aggressive behavior. This relates to the thesis by providing evidence on how aggressive behavior rises when expose to video game
Charles Herold, a video game critic for the New York Times sarcastically yet justifiably points out, in his article, that studies showing a short-term rise in aggressiveness in children after they played video gamers are meaningless if there was no comparable study on short-term aggressiveness after they had played football (2010). To sum up my point about the flaws of studies involved, not even the highest board of researchers can without a doubt tell us that there is a link. Author David Kushner goes on further by explaining that “At the end of the day, scientists-including those behind the studies, cited in the FCC report that they still aren’t sure if playing violent video games leads to real-life violence at all”
Unfortunately, there is a ton of violence to go around, but the good news? Video games are not to blame. “Whenever there is a mass shooting in the United States, it does not take long before pundits suggest violent video games might be to blame, but, a new report from the American Psychological Association found that there is insufficient research to support that link” (Michael Casey) Although it is important to note “Evidence showing the games can increase aggression, but not enough to demonstrate that playing the games leads to criminal behavior, shootings, or delinquency.” (Michael Casey) I would also like to comment that playing hockey can increase aggression as well, but does that mean that every hockey player is going to go commit
At a white house meeting of local and state officials the President was speaking regarding security after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He blamed the gaming culture and the depiction of violence in it. He states: "We have to look at the Internet because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds and their minds are being formed, and we have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing and how they’re seeing it, and also video games, I'm hearing more and more people saying the level of violence in video games is really shaping young people's thoughts" he said. Even though for some people President Trump might absolutely be the most stupid president there has ever been, yet he does seem to understand the effect that seeing a certain thing has on the development of young brains. It is absolutely true that a part of your brain that wants to adopt what it has seen gets trained continuously when you watch something.
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.
