A Research on Whether Video Games Cause Violence

In today's modern world and society, new products come out and with them new problems arise, and the new problem is whether playing video games can make a user act more aggressively, some other claims that older generations and the media have said is that playing violent video games will make you more prone to be a school shooter and make kids who play these violent games less empathetic towards sad moments or “shocking” moments.

And to counter these claims, there is an enormous amount of articles/investigations that prove wrong this idea, such as the investigation of Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein, called “Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents' aggressive behaviour: evidence from a registered report”, this investigation consists of finding the extent of aggression of adolescents that play video games versus adolescents that do not play video games, this examination included 1004 British adolescents ranging from the ages of 14 and 15, equally numbers of the kids carers were questioned about their kids aggressive behavior in the past month and as you would imagine, there was no evidence that showed that playing video games was the root cause of acting aggressively, although Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein’s investigation suggests that videogames are no the root cause for aggressive behavior, they also recognize that there is a good reason for blaming it, “though this idea is a controversial one.

To date, the main theoretical framework used to study the links between violent game engagement and aggression has been the general aggression model. Briefly, the GAM is an appetitive social learning theory that proposes that repeated exposure to violent media increases the accessibility of aggressive thoughts, which in turn increases the probability of aggressive cognitive schema, emotions and behaviour. Some reviews and recent studies informed by the GAM framework report consistent, though modest, support for the idea that violent gaming is linked to human aggression. ”, but as you would have guessed this theory is not uniform, complete nor evidenced, according to the literature analysis conducted by Sherry and Ferguson.

Another Great Article that says that video games do not cause violence is the article by CNBC called “No evidence that violent video games are causing mass shootings, despite politicians’ claims” by Sarah Witten, in the article Sara introduces three key points that she founds of magnitude to back up the claims, key points such as “Some politicians are blaming video games for violent acts, but there is no research that backs up this claim, “The U. S. isn’t even the largest consumer of violent video games, yet it has one of the highest violent gun-death rates. ” and at last, “It is a red herring to blame video games”, says Patrick Markey, director of The Interpersonal Research Laboratory and professor of psychology at Villanova University. ”.

This article is more leaned towards how politicians and people, used the topic of video games causing violence as an escape route, and these politicians are using these strategies in really big occasions, for example, mass shootings, unless you live under a rock you will know that in the recent years school shootings are a big problem in the USA, and people are pointing fingers to the video games, the author mentions something that is really correct, if playing video games is the causation for teens becoming more angry and violent, why are not any countries with the same problem, remember that the USA is not even the top consumer of video games in the world, and also Markey noted that 70% of high school students play violent video games only 20% of school shooters have reported playing violent video games, in fact he marks that school shooters are less interested in violent video games and that playing violent video games is a normal activity for teens and that school shooters tend not to imitate what their peers do, Sara Witten quotes, “The research is not there to suggest that there is a link between violent video games and these horrific acts of violence, ” Patrick Markey, director of The Interpersonal Research Laboratory and professor of psychology at Villanova University, said. “When we look at when people play video games, we actually see a dip in violent crimes. . . and we don’t see an uptick later on”, and “Countries where video games are the most popular tend to be among the safer countries in the world, ” Markey said, pointing to South Korea and Japan as examples. ” which really makes you think about whether video games are good or bad.

Walmart is also a believer that things that violent video games, following the Walmart shootings, Walmart has taken down all of the advertisements displaying violent video games, Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor from Stetson University says “Walmart’s decision this week is simply silly, ” and he expresses himself like this because he thinks that people will get more panicked and start or reinforce the idea that video games and violent crimes are actually linked which is not, in fact researchers have found factors that can lead to cause violent acts, which are hate speech and prior violent behavior said Still Shilling and Ivory.

Putting mass shooting aside there is a variety of research that suggest that videogames could actually be beneficial in some areas of our life, for example the research called “25+ Positive and Negative Effects of Video Games”, This research talks about the pros and cons of playing video games, the good things that Ronaldo Tumbokon found about playing video games is that videogames can in a way train us and reinforce critical thinking and problem solving, he backs up this statement by talking about games like “Angry Birds” or “Cut the rope” this games makes a child think of many creative ways into solving the given problem, in the case of “Angry Birds” will of course be to demolish a fortress with a limited amount of projectiles, the author also mentions that people that play shooting games will get a better hand-eye coordination than those who do not, learn spatial and iconic visualization skills. This is because when a player play shooting games the player has to keep track of a mobile object or opponent and move the mouse or controller in a direction and at a certain distance, and this is just talking of basic video games, if we talk about player versus player video games which means that two or more players are involved and go against each other, things can get more interesting because you have to take into consideration your surroundings, the direction of your opponent, projectile travel distance, projectile speed, projectile damage, and in some video games even use your hearing to determine an opponent's location. “There have been even studies with adults showing that experience with video games is related to better surgical skills.

Also, a reason given by experts as to why fighter pilots of today are more skillful is that this generation’s pilots are being weaned on video games. ”, another pro that the author mentions is quick thinking, strategy and anticipation, I believe he mentions this because as I already said in modern games there are a lot of factors, there is a video game I really like that is called “ Rainbow six siege” this violent game really uses your thinking skills to a whole new level, let me put you in a common scenario of this game, you are a defender of a bomb, and your team has been eliminated and theirs too so you are stuck in a one versus one, you have many choices, you can go face first to kill the opponent but you have to be good at shooting to do that, you can also wait for him to come to you, but wait there's more in this game basically every window, wall, floor and ceiling is destructible, and there are operators to choose from at the start of a match, for example there are operators that can blind you, if you go against one of these operators you might want to watch out for their gadget, but you don't know who the player has chosen unless you use one of your cameras to check her identity unless he has already destroyed them or you can communicate with your teammates if they have microphones, let’s say you decide to check the cameras, well to check the camera your character moves and makes noise, so you are risking giving away your position and your opponent might be around the corner so he will hear this noise and notice that you are vulnerable because you are using the camera, this applies to both of you because attackers can also use cameras both theirs are little drones and yours are surveillance cameras, so he might rush you and you won't hear him, you can also bait him by using the camera and quickly exiting of it and there you go and easy kill and you saved the day, unless he knows your intentions and when you try to bait him instead of him rushing he can throw his gadget and blind you for a couple of seconds and then rush you. This little example shows clearly that you use a lot of thinking in this type of video games.

All of the articles that I showed and explained in this research paper show why violent video games do not cause a person or groups to act against one another, but I already know what I believe in, it is now your turn to decide whether violent video games cause violence or not.