Violent Video Games: Call Of Duty To Blame?

Hundreds of studies have been done to determine whether violent video games will really make juveniles more violent. Randomized experiments were used in several studies to examine the short-term effect of violent video games (Anderson and Berkowitz et al. 90). In these studies, children were randomly assigned to play violent or nonviolent video games and then were observed when given an opportunity to be aggressive. The result was that children who played violent video games usually behaved aggressively.

Violent video games and many games in general also rob kids and adults of living life. Instead of going outside hiking, biking, or hanging out with friends at a coffee shop, young adults stay inside in their own virtual reality. If young adults stay inside playing games, they won’t be able to go out into the world and grow. Kids won’t learn how to properly communicate with people and learn social skills. Video games are ultimately a distraction for kids. Kids won’t focus on school or any responsibilities they might have all they can think about is their game.

There is overwhelming scientific research that suggests that playing violent video games are harmful to children and adolescents. The scientific evidence has uncovered several areas in the development of children and adolescent that are negatively impacted because of the exposure to and playing of violent video games. Some of the key areas that are negatively affected include brain activity, stress levels and behavior.

Video games have been a part of the lives of millions since the 70s when the original pong game came out. They have since evolved into games of violence and aggression in almost all video games that kids think are “fun”. Violent video games today affect children and young adults in a negative manor and promote aggressive behavior and can be a bad influence on their undeveloped minds. Children are so easily influenced because their frontal lobe, which is the decision making part of the brain, is not fully developed yet, therefore, they are much more susceptible to outside forces influencing them. Today, violence has pretty much been accepted by society and it is in almost everything we see, whether that is on the news, in movies, on tv shows, or in video games. Children can become somewhat addicted to video games similar to how an alcoholic can become addicted to alcohol. They lose control over the amount of playing that they do. It can lead to a decrease in grades in school and can also lead to a decrease in physical activity (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1). Children exposed to excessive violent video games and media can become desensitized to violence, sometimes will even copy violence they see in video games because to them they are a person to look up to. Kids today are on basically a different world than the kids of the decades before us. Years before kids would go out and play in the neighborhood for fun instead of just sitting in front of a TV

Bloodshed and aggression is everywhere; in magazines, in the shops, on the TV, on websites like YouTube as well as in video games. Yet, why is it that those video games are assumed to be the biggest media source responsible for the violent outbursts of different individuals? Is this really the case? Every eight out of ten homes in the United Kingdom own a existing generation games console and video games have become a extraordinary source of education when helping kids to learn, such websites like educationcity.com or the VTech Learning System that teach kids literacy, numeracy and the sciences through their games. However, it seems an American politician called Joe Biden deemed that violent video games should be taxed just because some isolated cases that miscreants try to hold violent video games responsible. Some have been naming games such as Call of Duty or Mortal Kombat - these games depicting scenes of people ripping someone’s spine from their body or being blown to pieces - to have ‘caused’ their actions. Some politicians believe that you should tax violent video games to push the parents away from buying them but this is a hideous idea also. However, I believe that violent video games do not support or glamorize violence in any way and in turn are not the main cause of violence in its many forms.

As we all know, video games have been blowing up since the first Super Mario Bros games by Shigeru Miyamoto in the mid 1980’s. But that is not the first game ever to release; it was actually a very simple tennis game during the time of 1964. Although back in the 60’s there wasn’t video games that included violence now that is the only “Cool” games to play during this era. I would like to know why children and teenagers only want to play violent video games that involve murder, profanity, and plenty of disrespect towards other characters. Therefore, my question is, do video games influence children and teenagers to use violence in their lives?

Naturally, the violent nature of several video games lead to its many criticisms. For example, many parents speculate that the murders and gun violence have been heavily influenced by video games such as Grand Theft Auto. Quite a few well-respected organizations buy into this narrative. At times news stories seek excuses to include video games in stories involving gun violence. For example, Susan Scutti, a journalist at CNN posted in her recent article “The 18-year old gunman who killed nine people in Munich, Germany, on Friday was a fan of first-person shooter video games, according to reports.” Quotes like these have been a continuous struggle with video games over the last decade. Reporters intending to figure out whether or not any murderer is a fan of video games is the problem. It has led to misunderstandings and fears surrounding the topic. Not all video games are violent in nature, however. Action games are nothing more than a genre. There are action genres for any medium that is sold. Books and movies also have themselves action and horror genres. They have an equivalent responsibility in supposedly causing the murders and gun violence. Consequently, gamers and intellectuals alike have decided to speak up about the problem. For example, Scutti’s article states, “a group of 238 scholars asked the American Psychological Association to retire its ‘outdated’ and ‘problematic’ statements on video game violence.” The other narrative, video games causing ADHD, is proved

First of all, violent video games give people a lot of bad character, many researchers have experimentally found that people playing the violent game will become more aggressive than before. For example, according to Bartholow(2001), “ They also found (Study 2) that participants who played Wolfenstein 3D (a violent game where the player “walks” through a castle, armed with various weapons, and attempts to kill people) in the lab behaved more aggressively than participants who played nonviolent game” (p.284). What do those investigations tell us? The point is people who played nonviolent games are not as aggressive as people who played violent games. People enjoying the satisfied of doing crazy things in the violent games which are a kind of unsatisfied with their reality. In this way, violent games is a bridge that turns people into aggressive, extreme. Furthermore, violent games also make the players become irritable. For instance, these

Past studies have shown a link between violent video games and an increase in aggressive behaviors. The intent of the present study was to further investigate these findings. It was predicted that players who engage in violent video games would show higher rates of aggression. Participants (N = 20) were asked to complete two short surveys, the Buss and Perry (1992) aggression questionnaire and Anderson and Dill’s (2000) video game exposure scale. The results of the study did not support the prediction, nor did they corroborate the findings from previous research. Identifying the relationship between violent video games and aggression is rather complex. Earlier studies have shown varying results; however, much of the research has shown a positive correlation between video game violence and real-world aggression.

Video games are getting extremely popular with the gaming community each year with popular titles like Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Grand Theft Auto V. Video games have become very popular they have become a sport known as e-sports in which players compete in a certain video game title for the prize pool with the biggest prize pool being $20 million. Although considering the majority of kids are now getting into these popular violent video games titles, people are having their concerns if video games are influencing children negatively. There have been studies to find out if video games do really influence violence in kids but have not been found because the truth is it does not. Violence in video games does not cause kids to be violent because a majority of kids already play violent video games, video games have ratings with content and parents have control on what kids play.

By their nature, video games require the participant to actively engage in the game. This can become very dangerous when playing violent video games. It is inevitable that children develop according to their surroundings and when a child is playing as a character in a violent video game, it is common for them to begin to act as if they are their character. “A 2004 study by Gentile, Lynch, Linder & Walsh found that teens who play violent video games for extended periods of time tend to be more aggressive, are more prone to confrontation with their parents and may engage in fights with their peers” (Palo Alto Medical Foundation, 2015). Not only can violence in video games cause a change in adolescent's mental state but they can also lead to negative changes in their actions and violent actions within the games are rewarded. When a child commits an action of violence within the game they are playing they are rewarded with points or some other type of reward. At young ages, children begin learning what is socially acceptable and what is not and if their learning process is interrupted by violent video games they will learn that violence is acceptable and will be rewarded. The rapid increase in the production of violent video games may ultimately lead to a world of aggression and violence.

In today’s world, violence has become a very persistent and unwavering problem. In fact, not a day goes by that one doesn’t see a story about violence on the local and/or national news stations. Unfortunately, the rise of violent massacres has become all too common in the present day. What could potentially be causing all these fits of violence and rage? Although there are many factors to consider when answering this question, one potential factor could be due to the increased violence in today’s video games. Though this topic is controversial, there is current research available to suggest that video game violence can affect behavior based on at least three reasons: violent video games can affect human behavior by skewing their reality, being exposed to violent graphic depictions can lead to a decrease in empathy and sensitivity, and violent video games could lead to an increase in aggression and anger problems.

Video games have become a very unique entertainment for children and teens in today’s society. She explains in her article that many adolescents today that are playing in video games engage more on a deeper level, physically, and emotionally then others that are watching a movie or television. In today’s society, many adolescents in the United States purchases video games and the sales are constantly going up. Andrea Norcia explains that playing video games has a positive and negative effect on adolescents. She suggests that the positive impact on adolescent playing video games helps improve children and teen’s manual dexterity and computer literacy. However the negative impact of playing video games has a risk factor for aggressive

a normal delay on their daily functioning. In conclusion this author seems to have a neutral opinion on ways video games may or may not affect children and teens.

Violent video games have been shown to increase aggressive behaviors (Anderson), whereas prosocial video games have been shown to increase empathy (Greitemeyer & Osswald). The context of video games might affect teens moderately for example, playing fast-paced video games may have positive effects on visual skills, such as faster reaction times, and improved target localization (Achtman, Green, & Bavelier; Green & Bavelier). Numerous amount of research prove that violent video games have a negative effect increasing the aggression on both short and long terms (Anderson & Dill; Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley; Anderson). Researchers believe that the aggression caused by violent video game effects depends on a real-life situation. For example, teens that do not associate with violence will not be as effected as teens that are associated with violence, violent video game have more positive attitudes toward violence without consequences in the game then that in real life “If you shoot somebody in one of these games, you don’t go to jail, you don’t get penalized in some way — you get extra points!” (Dr. Phil) this doesn’t mean that your child will go out into the “real”