Do Violent Video Games Cause Violence

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. 1-2). Gory and violent video games

With this in mind, gamers can be so swept into the way of the game that that they decide to try it in real life. An example of this is Adam Lanza, the man who slaughtered countless citizens during the Newton Shooting. Adam spent most of his time in his basement, obsessing over his first shooter games constantly. He knew how to handle a weapon and owned firearms, so he used the anger he had developed at other gamers to fuel his violent plans and later his actions. Violent video games are also able to teach a young adult how to handle a weapon and how to kill (Drinka par. 12-13). This is significant because violent video games cause real world violence and have unfavorable mental outcomes on an adolescent's mind. This is because the constant isolation from real people and obsession with the game can create built up rage and make weapons or killing people a familiar topic to the

The dark nature of the games will not only change them emotionally, but change their personality. A particularly compelling example of this would be a study done by researchers at Iowa State University, which had a group of students play a violent video game for 15 minutes and another group play a non-violent video game for 15 minutes. Once the time was up, they had each student eat a spoonful of hot sauce, which resulted in the students who played a violent game reacting more aggressively (Carey par. 7-8). This shows that violent video games can alter an adolescent's because they create more anger in their minds and they create negative reactions when it's unnecessary. Another piece of evidence is that research has proven, when a kid plays game for too long, their brain activity involving empathy is suppressed and it makes it hard for the gamer to feel pain for others (Drinka par. 17). All of this evidence shows that violent video games cause real world violence and have unfavorable mental outcomes on an adolescent's mind because their anger will increase and their empathy will decrease. The anger of the game can come into the adolescent's real life and can turn the kids engaging in them