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Video Games And The Desensitization Of Today's Youth

951 Words4 Pages

Punishing violence, crime, discrimination, torture, prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse…these images plague the American landscape and keep viewers tuned into the evening news. They are also some of the same traits that make video games increasing popular and have critics believing violent video games contribute to school-aged violence. Despite these allegations, there remains no measurable connection between violence in video games and the desensitization of today’s youth or the motivation to commit violence. Video games and the gaming community have grown year after year with children now spending a substantial amount of their time playing games, many of which are contain violence. One such game that has grown in popularity is Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto” in which players take on the criminal persona armed with a “wide array of weaponry” and are able to “…kill hundreds of characters, including civilians, police officers, and gang members” (Haynes). It is this type of game that fuels the notion of monkey see, monkey do…asserting that violence is infectious and impacts the mental well-being of children. …show more content…

The Center for Innovative Public Health Research reported that in 1994, nearly 500 out of every 100,000 youth were arrested in suspicion of violent crimes. In 2011, the rate of youth violent crime had declined by 60% to a rate of slightly over 200 arrests for every 100,000 youth (Chen). Likewise, in the 1990s the video game industry was beginning to bloom as manufacturers flooded the market with new gaming systems, graphics and game designs. Today it is estimated that 97% of American teens play video games

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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.

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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.

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Robert Smith Professor Marianne Buttenschon Introduction to Sociology September 28th, 2014 Article: “A Longitudinal Study of Risk-Glorifying Video Games and Behavioral Deviance” In the world there is violence, criminal acts that are happening all around us such as robberies, theft, murders, etc. This article is focusing on all those criminal acts that are happening these days with our younger generation of human beings because of the violent video games that kids and adolescent teens are playing these days. Such video games are “Grand Theft Auto”, which is an open world video game that allows the player to go around and shoot whoever he feels he would want to shoot, or you can go and steal any car that you see driving around the streets.

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HW8: Exploration for Paper 4 In his article "Violent Media is Good for Kids," author Gerard Jones claims that violent media, a category that includes video games, has positive aspects. Jones believes, “’creative violence’—head-bonking cartoons, bloody video games, playground karate, toy guns—gives children a tool to master their rage”(Jones para.12). Video games have been played for almost fifty years, and while they have become much more violent in content in the last decade or so, research shows that the adolescent crime rate has actually dropped almost fifty percent since 1995 (Thierer para. 3). This suggests that perhaps violent video games may not have as negative of an impact on children as some suggest and can actually be seen as the

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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.

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Raymond Carver's short story “Popular Mechanics” explains a situation in which almost half of children nowadays experience. Divorce creates an ever lasting impact on children, and “of all children born to married parents this year, fifty percent will experience the divorce of their parents before they reach their 18th birthday.” (CITE) Every divorce or separation of parents is different than the next. However, just like any controversial topic gender roles are quickly examined and assumed.

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But this is simply not the case. Similar to how guns don’t kill people, people kill people; video games don’t give birth to murderers. A common misconception about video games is that in playing them, the desire for juveniles to imitate the onscreen actions arises and, therefore, increasing the amount of violent crimes such as murder. And with almost three-quarters of

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Many popular video games, movies, and even songs feature elements of shooting and violence. One of the highest selling video games of all time is Grand Theft Auto V, in which the video game player takes control of 3 different characters all mindlessly killing people. While studies haven’t been entirely conclusive, violence should be partially removed from media as is not a necessary part of life, and violence is mentally injuring children across the world. Violence is an act that covers a broad variety of examples. For one, extreme violence leads to murder, and those who murder are almost certainly violent.

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Violent video games have been around since the beginning of the video game era in 1940 with the creation of the computer, by Edward U. Condon, that plays the traditional game of Nim. This game was a fun, interactive game for everybody of all ages to play, but as time progressed video games began to evolve into something much more by adding violence. Some of these games today include, Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto; where many of these companies have created multiple versions to create a better gaming experience. As parents go and buy these games for children as young as 4 to 5 years old, they don’t stop and think about how this violence could impact their child’s mental health. This video game violence could lead to the child attempting to mimic the actions and cause trouble for other people in their

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"If video games do increase violent tendencies outside the laboratory, the explosion of gaming over the past decade from $3.2 billion in sales in 1995 to $7 billion in 2003, according to industry figures, would suggest a parallel trend in youth violence. Instead, youth violence has been decreasing” (Merino 57). Many tests trying to connect video games to aggressive habits are too contained and don’t represent what happens in real life. This is apparent when looking at the ratio between youth violence related to video games sales, which has gone down. This means that video game violence doesn’t have real-life

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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.

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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. Claim1 Research involving British primary schoolchildren found that the length of time young people spend playing games, rather than their content, could have an effect on their behavior or school performance. But it concluded that fears that generations of young people are growing up with their development impaired by exposure to violent video games are no more likely to be borne out than previous “moral panics” over television and other media. Playing one-player games is not always negative if you do it moderately.

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Video games Video games can cause negative psychological effect such as self-control, anxiety, depression, aggressiveness and confusion. These effects could endanger the future of adolescence as they’re still part of the growth and development stage. The addictiveness of video games could further increase these negative benefits. Playing video games supports teenagers to do crimes as they are rewarded for doing so. For example, in Grand Theft Auto or GTA, the player is awarded for doing missions, missions which instructs the player to steal, to drive recklessly, to fight, to shoot and to kill.

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There are games that literally replicate and give people the ability to score points for doing the very same thing that these students are doing inside schools, where you get extra points for finishing someone off who’s lying there begins for their life.” ( 6) There are several ideas that say young people benefit from these violent video games “Surprisingly, playing video games can help our physical, mental, and emotional health.” It helps them to improve hand eye coordination and thinking ability. These benefits are not worth the risk of being influenced by violent video games. (7) All in all the research and officials say that violent video games affect how children, teenagers and young adults act.

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Does violent video game contributes to youth violence According to research, as 97% of 12-17year old kids are playing video games. The domestic video game industries earn about 21 billion dollars per year. More than half of best-selling video games contain violence scene. Now the violent video game has been blamed for school shooting, increasing the bullying, and sexual assaults.

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