“The Columbine shooters played violent video games; that has to be a factor in their decision to brutally murder their classmates!” Society is quick to point fingers and approach unknown situations with a causal mentality that often results in a false accusation of an innocent bystander. With the advent of the video game era, psychologists have debated their effect on the minds of their youthful audience. Throughout the multitude of studies and the perpetual debate, society still lacks an absolute answer. With this knowledge, when it comes to video games and their impact on the minds of children, researchers must consult a wide variety of subjects with an open mind about the potential outcomes. I conducted my research by examining my personal experience, analyzing studies refuting both sides of the argument, trying to view the American fascination with violence through an outside perspective, and reviewing the thought processes that lead the members of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in order to gain a full perspective of the issue. What correlation exists, if any, between violent video games and the violent tendencies that children exhibit after exposure to said media? Throughout my research, I have discovered that a trend does exist, but it manifests after the child has encountered puberty because of the heightened levels of testosterone that accompany this phase of development, and the trend relies heavily on other factors in a violent disposition. The age factor generally fails to exist in the violent tendencies argument; this is intriguing in that the majority of violent videogames are targeted toward an older audience. In order to truly understand the violent tendencies of mankind, we must first analyze these ... ... middle of paper ... ... Test of the General Aggression Model." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28.12 (2002): 1679-686. Print. Cook, Andrea J. "Columbine Author Speaks At Conference." Reclaiming Children And Youth: The Journal Of Strength-Based Interventions 13.3 (2004): 181. ERIC. Web. 8 May 2014. Ferguson, Christopher, Adolfo Garza, Jessica Jerabeck, Raul Ramos, and Mariza Galindo. "Not Worth the Fuss After All? Cross-sectional and Prospective Data on Violent Video Game Influences on Aggression, Visuospatial Cognition and Mathematics Ability in a Sample of Youth." Journal of Youth & Adolescence; 42.1 (2013): 109-22. EBSCOhost. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. Lin, Jin-Hsuan. "Identification Matters: A Moderated Mediation Model of Media Interactivity, Character Identification, and Video Game Violence on Aggression." Journal of Communication 63.4 (2013): 682-702. EBSCOhost. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
The article “Do Video Games Kill” written by Karen Sternheimer addresses the widespread question; are video games the cause for “young killers”? (220) Sternheimer believes concern for the influence of video games may have on youth is spiraling out of control. She puts most of the blame for this out of control concern on the media. She also writes some about the 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 it may be that juvenile crimes have declined, and personal backgrounds effect actions, it cannot be proven that video game violence has no to little effect on
With all these violence that had been going on within 2011 and 2012, the media question the safety of children playing violence game. Can the shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook and Columbine be a link to violence video game? An article from Parenting.com, Sasha Emmons, 2013, discuss about the December’s horrific massacre in Newtown questions about guns in media and their connection to real-life violence. They brought up the topic about the killer of Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza play the violence game Call of Duty. They question how much should parents focus on their child concerning on their child aggressive copycat behavior (Emmons, 2013). Parents all over the world are concern about their children watching and playing violence game. Some parent report about their child behavior. Should they worries when their child would image that house hold supply to be a gun, going around the house making shooting noise?
On April 20, 1999, in a small town of Littleton, Colorado, two high school students by the name of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris executed their plan to kill hundreds of their fellow students. With a multitude of guns, knives, and bombs, they walked down the halls of Columbine High School and started their massacre. In the end, twelve students, one teacher, and the murderers were dead with twenty one more injured. Klebold and Harris were both highly intelligent boys who came from a solid household. Both boys had also played sports and enjoyed working with computers. The motive for shooting at school is very unclear. One of the speculated motives was the influence of the highly violent video game Doom (Rosenburg). The video game Doom is about the main protagonist, DoomGuy, the toughest marine anyone has ever seen. After assaulting his commanding officer for trying to order him to open fire upon innocent civilians, he was sent to Mars as punishment. Meanwhile, evil has risen from the depths of the red planet. Being the only combat ready soldiers in a million miles, it is his and his squad mates duty to track down and kill a variety of evil creatures; such as murderous demon minotaurs, robot spiders, and meatball-looking demons. While DoomGuy was on look out, his squad has been viciously killed off by the many creatures of the red planet. Now it is up to DoomGuy to cleanse the planet from the evil with his only set back being that his squad mates took all of the guns and all DoomGuy has left is a pistol. Video games allow the players to experience the immense world the game has to offer. From a futuristic sci-fi shooter to a medieval action adventure, players are able to live out the adventures of the many heroes and villains and explore many different worlds within the broad setting any one game has to offer. Nevertheless, since the late 1900’s, video game industry has
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.
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.
Scott, D. The Effect of Video Games on Feelings of Aggression. The Journal of Psychology. March 1995 v129 n2 p121-132.
Violence has been around for quite a long time. Fights and wars are the interest of today’s society of entertainment. People are more likely to see a movie, where protagonists kill bad guys, over a romantic movie, where a typical girl finds her “knight in shining armor.” This also applies to how teens feel when playing games. Teens have a sweet tooth for violent games, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, Kill zone, Infamous, and other violent rated games. These games are like vocabulary words in a teens’ language. A recent discussion has been brought up from the Industry of Coombes Class (ICC). A worker has noticed a few news reports stating that games have influenced shooting sprees or murders in the community. Not only that but also parents are being persuaded to ban their children from playing games. The question is “Are games really influencing teens’ bad behaviors?” Well, violent games have been said to be the cause of teens’ violent acts, but this is not true. Many times this has been proven wrong by scientists and psychologists.
Violence in video games supposedly causing violence and criminal acts in real life has been argued for many years and a solution has been proposed. Since many people believe that violence or a criminal act in real life is more likely to occur at the hands of someone who has played a violent video game as a child, an age limit on certain kinds of violence in games has been proposed. I believe that if parents regulate their children and make sure that their child is not being negatively affected then no problems would arise from this.
Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological science, 12(5), 353-359.
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.
Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: a Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature." Psychological Science (2001). EBSCO. DePaul Library. 7 Mar. 2008.
middle of paper ... ... The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits on Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance. Journal of Adolescence, 27. http://www.sciencedirect.com
...inal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States," Pediatrics, Nov. 2008
The day was April 20th, 1999. During an otherwise peaceful day at Columbine High in Columbine, CO, two seniors—Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold—finally committed an atrocious act. That act had been in the planning for a long time, perhaps even since Harris designed a website for popular, controversial, extremely violent video game Doom in 1996. The Columbine High School shooting is known as the deadliest high school shooting ever, with its death toll of twelve students and one teacher, as well as twenty-four people injured. But little known for some is the fact that the Columbine shooting was what kick started the nationwide controversy over violent video games. Harris, for one, was an avid player of Doom, and some believe that’s what caused him and Klebold to even think of murdering all the people who had, according to Harris’ diaries, simply ‘annoyed’ him. The fallout of this incident was massive, but one of the long-lasting effects has been the worry in people’s minds that there is a connection between video games and violent acts performed by teenagers. Those who do believe that may claim that before the digital age, violent acts—at least those performed by teenagers—were few and far between. (This is an obvious rumor, not a fact.) If that were the case, it’s understandable why some believe that games are causing more violence in today’s youth. Teachers are worried about the issue, as are parents and government officials, and teenagers and game producers are involved in it as well. The issue itself raises many questions: are teenagers so easily affected by images on a screen? Is the world merely a product of its pastimes? If video games really do cause increased aggression in youth, what are people supposed to do about it? Despit...
Willoughby, T., Adachi, P. C., & Good, M. (2012). A longitudinal study of the association between violent video game play and aggression among adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 48(4), 1044-1057. doi:10.1037/a0026046