The Link Between Video Games and Deviant Behavior

Introduction

Because the modern video games have allowed video game creators to bring ‘sort of life’ into the game. It has led to them creating more graphic games that builds up deviant behaviors on the young generation thus, exposing them to violence.

According to Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley (2007), stated that playing of video games that are violent tends to arouse aggressive behavior, affect, cognition and psychological problems than non-violent games. Indeed, there are researches that have been done to prove the interconnection between violent games and the real-life aggression. In 2012, Adam Lanza killed over 20 people before taking his life at Sandy High School (Pilkington, 2013). In another case, Devin Moore was engaged in a violent shoot out at a police station after being apprehended for theft. Moore grabbed a police officer’s gun while being booked at the police station and shot three police officers and later escaped in a police care. Looking into these two examples, Adam and Devin played violent games- the Call of Duty and Gears of War, whereby it’s believed First Person Shooter (FPS) are the most violent games. Violent games bring about short term and long-term aggression. With these two premises, young generation who play violent games tend to be violent in their youthful life and most likely in their futures.

Body

Anderson & Dill’s (2000) research on the effect of violent games on undergraduate students. These researchers examined the directing role of presentation to rough video games and the interceding roles of characteristic touchiness and availability to aggressive considerations under the General Aggressive Model (GAM). The GAM explained the short term and long term of violent games using various models such as the arousal theory, cognitive processing models and the social learning theory. The model begins based on the assumption that aggressiveness is mainly created by social learning processes that are based on knowledge structures (Anderson & Dill, 2000). For instance, playing a brutal video game may prime aggressive insights through the actuation of aggressive contents and ideas, increment physiological excitement, and make sentiments of outrage. This adjusted interior state prompts an animosity one-sided examination of outside signs, which prompts an aggressive reaction (Anderson & Bushman, 2002).

In the long haul, the GAM predicts that rehashed introduction to rough video games will bring about changes to the persons character driving the player to turn out to be increasingly aggressive in viewpoint perceptual inclinations, perspectives convictions and conduct (Anderson & Dill, 2000). Aggressive thoughts are believed to be heightened when young people tend to play online games with human opponents. As Wei R. (2007) stated that Chinese adolescents that played online against human opponents tend to express more aggressive behavior, low empathetic feeling and showing high violent behaviors than those that played against computer opponents.

Deviant behaviors such as aggressions, bullying and also fighting among the adolescents is brought by the playing of video games. Young adults that play online games such as the FPS tend to be aggressive to their peers. In order to understand this issue, we need to check some statistics that were brought about, as Anderson C.A. & Warburton W. A. (2012), stated that children who played Mature rated games (M-rated) about 60% of boys and almost 40% of girls most likely hit someone in comparison with the 39% of boys and 14% of girls who did not play M-rated games. Many studies have been done to prove that many children that play M-rated games, throughout their school year tend to bully and show aggressiveness to their peers, involve in fights, tend to argue more with their teachers. With these, it brings out the short- and long-term outcomes that arise when a teenager engages in M-rated games and this tends to affect the society.

Secondly, violent games tend to promote fighting and use of violence by having a reward system such as giving more lives, ammunition and points that rank them among their online peers. As Gentile, D.A (2014) states that players that play violent games that are rewarding tend to portray aggressiveness than those who play games where violence is penalized. The reward becomes a recognizing factor as video games tend to reward their gamers while movies that depict violence don’t allow their viewers to engage in violence. Research by Gentile, D.A (2014), showed that 90% of the 81 games sampled of the age bracket 13 onwards, rewarded their gamers when they hurt or kill a character. People who play rewarding violent games tend to show more high levels of deviant behaviors such as the aggressiveness in comparison to those that play non-violent games that are also competitive.

There are some video games that portray violence to women thus, in the long-term teenagers playing these games will tend to have ill attitudes towards women. These games tend to make women objects of either sex or violence thus, supporting the rape. They tend to promote attitudes that women desire rape or incite men to rape. To be able to understand this, research carried by Beck, S.A, Boys, S. et al., (2012) stated that most of the games viewed women as sex objects and promoted violence against women. Games like the Grand Theft series promote killing of a prostitute to recover your money. Teenagers exposed to these kind of video games that are violent sexual will lead them to commit the violent sexual acts in the long run thus bringing the third point that deviant behaviors are brought about by certain video games.

Certain video games instill behaviors in young teenagers making them to act and behave like the characters in the games. This may affect those that aren’t able to distinguish between reality and fantasy. The violent games require violent characters that make the gamers develop violent behavior. As Gentile, D.A (2014) states that children develop the character’s behavior by mimicking them because they aren’t able to distinguish the difference from real-world violence and fantasy violence. A child’s behavior can cause psychological harm by just acting and not watching (Anderson, C.A., Bushman, B.J., & Groom, R.W., 1997). Children acting and mimicking these video game characters are a foundation of developing the deviant behaviors.

Lastly, video games actually require some simulating actions such as stabbing, shooting or even disarming a weapon from a character. With the modernized controllers we have these days, the actions are being taught to teenagers thus, used in the real world. These tends to affect the cognitive aggression of the teenage. To be able to get this, an article in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (2001), two kids who played Grand Theft Auto 3, shot at two passing cars and killed a driver. The video game simulated the game and the two kids saw its appropriate to do such an act, thus explaining why the video games instills deviant behaviors in gamers especially teenagers and kids.

Many arguments have been brought up that video games do not instill deviant behaviors in individuals. Some of the counter arguments are such as; with increase in playing of the violent video games, it has contributed hugely in the sales of the games thus, juvenile cases have drastically reduced. Some studies claim that there is no interrelationship between violence associated with real life and the video game. As they claim that video game experiments have little time than the actual games in real life. Others stated that video games tend to release anxiety and anger as most kids tend to play to maintain their emotions resulting to an aggression-free world (Olson, C., Kutner, L., & Warner, D., 2008).

Conclusion

In conclusion, promoting teenagers and kids to play video games is like a ticking time bomb. As some will in general develop the deviant behaviors such as aggressiveness and bullying which isn’t ideal for a society. They will develop character behaviors from the games such as the only way to solve conflicts is through fighting, viewing women as sex objects and encouraging violence. These video games will encourage teenagers and kids that what they play and what they learn such as violent actions are ideal to be used in the real world thus, not knowing the difference between fantasy and real world. In the video games market, there is a variety of video games one can choose from, one that is competitive but not depicting violence, violent sexual acts or even diminishing certain genders in the society.

References

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2. Anderson, C.A., Bushman, B.J., & Groom, R.W (1997). Hot Years and Serious Deadly Assault: Empirical Tests of the Heat Hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
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5. Beck, S.A, Boys, S. et al., (2012). Violence Against Women in Video Games: A Prequel or Sequel to Rape Myth Acceptance? Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
6. Gentile, D. A. (Ed.). (2014). Media violence and children: A complete guide for parents and professionals (2nd ed.). Praeger/ABC-CLIO.
7. Office of the Surgeon General. (2001). Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
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9. Pilkington, E. (2013). Sandy Hook report – shooter Adam Lanza was obsessed with mass murder. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/25/sandy-hook-shooter-adam-lanza-report.
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