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How does media influence teenagers in a negative way
Video games cause bad behavior
Do video games affect a childs behavior
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In the past few decades there has been debate over the positive and negative affects of video games with a good deal of focus on more violent games. Prior to and concurrently with this debate, there have also been similar debates over radio, television, and movies but, as should be obvious from the current breadth of media, no studies have definitively proven any negative affects. The detractors of video games claim, based on media effects research, that people who play video games with any sort of violence in them have heightened antisocial and decreased prosocial tendencies afterwards; this is the assumed cause of certain acts of violence including the majority of school shootings. The supporters of video games claim that there is an increase in hand-eye coordination and spatial reasoning, a decrease in aggression, and far more they also state that the media effect studies often had numerous issues. It’s my goal to try to set the record straight and do my part to end the debate once and for all.
The media brought this debate to public attention after the Columbine school shooting ;when people were searching for some sort of reason behind the event they never latched onto the mistreatment of the two boys by their fellow students, but instead on the boys’ habits of playing games like Doom. This focus led to studies which were intended to discover how video games affected aggression; the problem was that the studies consistently had flaws. In 2000 Bartholow and Anderson did a study to test how violent games affect people and possible gender differences. In the study, subjects (22 men and 21 women) would play a video game (PGA Tournament Golf or Mortal Kombat) for ten minutes, then they would be given a test in which the subject would be exposed to loud noises of varying intensity from 60 decibels to 105 decibels. One group of subjects received higher intensity than the others, by the tester at certain points (under the belief that it was due to an incorrect answer), and afterwards they would switch with the tester and be in full control of the volume. The study found a mean difference between those who played the violent game and those who did not of 6.85 decibels and a mean gender difference of 4.05 decibels with the men giving more (adjusted from the test scale), the high-intensity group had respective mean differences of 26.5 and 16.5 decibels. In the ana...
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...ntal Social Psychology 38.3 (2002): 283-90. Print.
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The allegation that videogames cause violent behavior in children has been present as long as videogames themselves. Some researchers said that the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, was one intense gamer. “Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech Shooter was seen by his roomates as odd because he never joined them in video games.”(Beresin) This debate will continue to go on in this country as long as there are horrific crimes that occur. There is much written in the research regarding this issue, and many differing views. The research that is presented in the next few paragraphs supports the theory that it is not the graphic video games that produce aggressive behavior, but other factors in a child’s life that create violent actions.
In the last two decades, video games have become popular, especially violent video games such as Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament, and Grand Theft Auto, among others. According to Anderson and Bushman, “[a]bout 10% of children aged 2 to 18 play console and computer video games more than 1 hour per day; among 8- to 13-year-old boys, the average is more than 7.5 hours per week” (354). Due to their explicit violent content, violent video games have been seen as a negative influence in society by promoting aggression in the real world, thus increasing violence in society. Most people assume that playing violent video games has negative effects on players because violent video games create aggressive behaviors on the people who play them. However, studies show that violent video games bring some benefits, and people who normally choose to play violent video games are the ones that have been raised or have been exposed to a violent environment.
At this day in age we bask in the luxury of having easy access to advanced technology at our disposal. From the World Wide Web, to cell phones, music, movies and video games the human race has thought of any and everything to keep us entertained. Over the years studies have shown reasonable concerns regarding the long-term effects of video games. These games can desensitize gamers to real life violence, which is usually seen in the younger crowd. The studies especially hit on the games containing player-on-player violence. Though these games are extremely entertaining and can get kids to settle down for a while, if not properly supervised, they can produce adverse effects. Other studies have shown that video games can be used as way to yield positive outcomes such as, good problem solving skills, cooperation in a group and the ability to flow. Although there has been psychological research on children learning through the actions of others some believe that children are automatically able to distinguish between what is just a game and what is reality. The longer they are allowed on their game system the more they become convinced that their games are real. Some researchers believe violent video games can channel the aggression of the child but the parents are to blame for what happens to the child after playing an excessive amount over a period of time. Children can become preoccupied with these violent video games which have been proven to be the cause of poor social skills, uncontrollable aggression and a false reality.
“Contrary to the claims that violent video games are linked to aggressive assaults and homicides, no evidence was found to suggest that this medium was a major (or minor) contributing cause of violence in the United States.” (Markey, 290)
Up to this point, the majority of research based on video games was directed toward the two major concepts of gender and violence. The existence of violence in games is not up for debate; from Donkey Kong throwing barrels and Pac-Man eating ghosts during the birth of home gaming, to samurai Samanosuke slicing up demons in Playstation 2’s Onimusha series, violence has been prevalent in gaming. In fact, a study claims that, on average, 89% of video games include violent content (Children Now, 2001).The question is: how does the violence affect young players? There are two rival camps with opposing viewpoints on the matter of media violence. One, and arguably the more vocal of the two, states that violent content is likely to make the viewer/player act out in violent ways. The other claims that violence in games acts as a catharsis, thus preventing violence on the part of the user. Research on this aspect of video games, and in fact all media, has been conducted as long as the technology has been in existence (Dominick, J.R. (1984). Video games, television violence and aggression in teenagers.). As of yet, results have been inconclusive.
Although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it. I am focusing on violent video games and how they affect juveniles because I feel that this issue needs to be looked at in the criminal justice community. It is an unnecessary distraction to blame the actions of a disturbed youth on a form of entertainment that has been used by millions of people without incident. A review article published in The Psychiatric Quarterly found that many studies which claim to indicate an increase in aggression due to video games are, in fact, biased! Once the bias is taken into account, the studies no longer find any correlation between youths who play violent video games and youths who demonstate aggression and violent behavior. (Ferguson, 2014)
Many kids like Tommy, who spend most of their childhood and adolescences emerged in imaginary lands rather than dealing with the real world at hand, become socially anxious and have low self-esteem later in life. Instead of thriving with a career and family, they relapse back to the same virtual interaction they had as a child. They float through life barely able to support themselves or result to living with their parents. Adulthood seems to them a mere task they must complete in order to continue their gaming. Excessive videogame play for children and adolescents cause social anxiety, depression, and aggression because more time is spent alone engrossed in dynamic storylines and complex situations than outside building face-to-face relationships and other healthy social skills that better prepare them for their future.
While many different case studies have been done all over the world, scientists have yet to prove that there is a direct correlation between violent video games and child aggression. Since the start of this quarter, this has been an issue that I have been doing extensive research on. Despite looking into several scholarly sources, I was surprised to see that many of my findings were pretty consistent with one another. For the mort part, what I found through my research was a bunch of statistics from case studies and the interpretation of those statistics from renowned scientists. In many cases, statistics and studies showed slight indications that violent video games have an effect on c...
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3. “Video Games” by Chris Jozefowics. Published by Gareth Stevens Publishing 2010. Pleasantville, NY 10570-70000 USA. Produced by Editorials Directions Inc.
By far the largest concern of technology today is video games. There have been so many experiments and studies to try and figure out if video games have a negative or positive effect on our children. A growing body of research is linking violent video game play to aggressive cognitive, attitudes and behaviors (D.A. Gentile, 2004). Video games can obviously be dangerous for our children causing aggression, bad performances in school and obesity. Although we cant blame all of these problems on the use of video game...
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"Video game play may provide learning, health, social benefits." American Psychological Association. February 2014, Vol 45, No. 2
Are video games a negative or positive influence on children’s behavior and actions? Several studies have been pointing out that exposure to violence on television, movies, video games, cell phones and the Internet increases the risk of violent behavior in the viewer, like to grow in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of violent behavior. Plentiful of the research on current media have focused on the violence spread by TV for experts in developmental psychology and John Murray of Kansas State University, United States, it is difficult to conclude otherwise than that violence on television has increased levels of violence and aggression in the society, and that video games have an effect even more powerful. Violent video games are more distress, than the films of the same sign and that the images of violence shown on television because they are interactive, because they use a technology environment that allows the user total immersion in the situation, while producing new objects cultural. The reason is that video games are not limited to violence to show a passive spectator, but require the person to connect with the character and act for him, while violence in film and television images whose exposure is limited only to visual perception. The video game violence has long-term real effects. Children exposed to high levels of violent entertainment can become more aggressive and develop a tremendous face the suffering of others, also increases the likelihood they interact and respond to violence in their social environment. In violent video games as success is clearly defined as killing or take, and failure as die or loses the good and evil as the wicked: they, different from us, it is just revenged, I mate,...