Violent Video Games And State Aggression

Over the past decade, violent video games have been amongst the most talked about subjects of the nation. The US has been devastated by mass shootings, bombings, and other massacres. As these crises occur, people look for an explanation. Why do the criminals commit the acts of violence they do? A big source that has been the subject of fault is the violent video games. Video games seem like a valuable source. “More than half of all video games rated by the ESRB had violence, including more than 90% of those rated as appropriate for children 10 years or older,” (Miller). People are on each side of the debate. Some believe that the video games are a way to release stress and anger. Others believe they provide the source to violence and

There has been research and conclusions formed from the General Aggression Model, or GAM. The GAM has shown that with the trigger like controllers and larger screen televisions, players have a better experience and put themselves into the game world even more. “Based on this rationale and GAM, we propose a theoretical model that predicts potential paths through which a realistic controller and a large screen display elevate gamers’ perceived levels of spatial presence and arousal, which in turn affect state aggression,” (Kim and Sundar). When players enter this spatial presence, the virtual world can be psychologically altered to where they believe they are in a real world situation. The players become addicted this way. This can cause the player to spend over twenty hours a week on the game which stunt many trickle-down effects. The violent games lead them to perform poorly in school, argue with teachers, condone aggression and get into physical fights with their peers, says the studies,” (Downs and Fraser). The thought used to be that the players were able to be more social with other players online from around the world, but because of the aggression the games cause, players will be less apt to socialize with anyone during the time of play. Children are affected the most, because developing the habit early dictates their attitude to the real world as they grow and mature. Because the violent video games reach out to all ages, the attitude is held throughout the gamers’ lives. This is where the game companies are in the wrong. Creators have made the controllers and graphics too real. The controllers for first-person shooter, is that of an actual trigger. Players interact in these games and are rewarded for killing the other players around them. A positive impulse is created and sent to the mind saying that when the player squeezes the trigger button, they will be