Desensitization To Violence

Before trying to determine whether desensitization to violence and video games are correlated in any way, we should mention first what is usually meant by ‘desensitization to violence’. Young people becoming desensitized to violence means that "they gradually come to not be aroused by violent scenes and to not be bothered by violence in general". The dominant argument in this respect is that because children perceive screen violence as play or spectacle, they somehow become "immune to the horror of violence, which makes them as a result less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, or even aggressive towards others".
It seems that there is no controversy concerning the effects of violence viewing on young people. Most scientists agree
Video games are actually simulated physical activity, where the player is not doing the muscles part of action but only the brain part of it. Every kind of action can be found there but, our discussion being about violence, I will refer to fighting games in particular. Titles like: Streetfighter, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Grand Theft Auto, Doom, Blade of Darkness, Alien vs Predator are indicative of their content. In all these games the player is required to fight, outsmart, and defeat an enemy. The enemy is usually human (soldiers, spies, gangsters, knights, evil people) but there are also aliens, ghosts, creatures and other things. Every possible form of fighting is used; martial arts, gun fighting, air fighting, submarine fighting, spacecraft fighting, anything we can imagine. Yet all this mayhem has nothing to do with violence. Violence means harm, pain, suffering. There are no such elements in video games. The pain is never shown and the victim can be completely run over and then pop back up without harm. The characters do not look realistic either by technical or by artistic standards. They are not given a substantial personality and they lack real life motivations and emotions. They remind more of toys than of living creatures. The player cannot get emotionally involved (nobody cries when playing Max Payne, although the game’s story is supposed to be very tragic). The whole thing is a juggling experience rather than one of watching a movie. After all, the game is there to be played, not to be watched, and fighting is just an excuse for practicing quick response, accuracy, strategy, and other skills. But if it was to be watched, one would see in it images, colors, motion, speed, sounds, special effects and music; definitely not violence and pain. In the few instances were gore is