Violent Video Games: The Negative Effects

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On April 20, 1999, two adolescent boys walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and shot 12 of their classmates and a teacher. Then, they killed themselves. When authorities investigated, they found that the boys had played thousands of hours of a video game that had been set to occur in their high school. They used yearbook pictures to create the game's virtual victims. The event that took place at Columbine High School is only one of many tragedies that have taken place due to the influence of video games. Violent video games should not be played by children and teens because they gain early exposure to extreme violence, mature themes, and explicit language.
In almost all video games, there are weapons of some sort. Even Lego brand video games feature weapons and a large amount of killing. Many children and teens accept this violence because their characters regenerate when killed. Christopher Bartlett, a psychologist at Iowa State University, led a research team made up of 47 undergraduates. Bartlett had a group of students play “Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance” for 15 minutes. Then, the students had to dole out hot sauce to a fellow student who did not like spicy food, but had to swallow the sauce. Compared to a group of students who had played a nonviolent video game, those who had played “Mortal Kombat” gave their fellow classmate much larger amounts of hot sauce (Carrey). More than 3,500 studies have shown the close relationship between video games and violent behavior. All but 18 studies have proved this to be true. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), violence that is shown without suffering is more likely to mimic violent behavior because the violence is, in a sense, meaningless (Eakes)...

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Works Cited

Carey, Benedict. “Shooting in the Dark.” The New York Times. The New York Times,
11 Feb. 2013. Web. 4 May 2014. science/studying-the-effects-of-playing-violent-video-games.html?pagewanted=1>. Eakes, Pamela. “Do You KNow What Video Games Your Children Are Playing?” The Video
Game Revolution. PBS, n.d. Web. 4 May 2014. videogamerevolution/impact/violence.html>. Park, Alice. “Children Who Hear Swear Words on TV Are More Aggressive.” Time. Time,
24 Mar. 2014. Web. 4 May 2014. children-who-hear-swear-words-on-tv-are-more-aggressive//>. Park, Alice. “Little By Little, Violent Video Games Make Us More Aggressive.” Time. Time,
24 Mar. 2014. Web. 4 May 2014.
how-violent-video-games-change-kids-attitudes-about-aggression/>.

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