Video Game Violence Research Paper

Jake had never felt this much rage before. Nothing was going his way today. It seemed as if the world's was out to get him! He flunked his math test, shattered his phone screen, and even earned himself a lunch detention by almost burning down the science lab. As soon as Jake arrived home, he was barraged with questions about why he failed the test and how he managed to get a detention. His mother complained, “Jake, I’m so disappointed. It’s so unlike you to to fail a test.” Talking even louder in the background as his mother continued on, his pest of a sister taunted in a sing song tune, “Jake failed his test, Jake failed his test!” On top of all of that, he worried about what his dad would do when he found out about what had happened today.
It was Pong, the first ever arcade video game. Since then, video games have come a long way from just consisting of a pixelated ball and paddle. There are different themes and genres that appeal to all ages. From educational games to virtual reality the possibilities are endless. Recently, video games that contain violence and adult content have been under multitudes of scrutiny for being claimed to cause aggression in people and even change parts of the brain for the worse. Although it seems that playing games on electronic devices, especially violent ones would be damaging to children and adults, there are studies that show that violent video games have many benefits. These games have been proven to build self esteem and relationships in shy children, improve memory and multitasking skills, and can be used as a beneficial learning
These are very important to have in a skill set because having better memory can help academically by retaining learned information better and socially by having an easier time with remembering events, names, and faces. Simone Kuhn, a researcher at Max Planck Institute for Human Development, “…found that the brain’s prefrontal cortex actually grows thicker in people who play games. The prefrontal cortex is linked to people’s personality and ability to make decisions. The changes she observed could improve memory…” This may happen because the player is constantly holding a big amount of information inside their head such as objectives, strategies, locations within the game, and game plans. Another skill that is enhanced while playing these games is multitasking. People with sufficient multitasking skills gain some advantages like being more resourceful which leads to being motivated and having initiative. A study titled Video Games: Play That Can Do Serious Good, done by researchers Adam Eichenbaum, Daphne Bavelier, and C. Shawn Green concluded that people who play violent video games can multitask better than people who played nonviolent video games. Their report states that, “…a group of NVGPs trained on an action, first-person shooter game for fifteen hours while a control group trained on Tetris for the same amount of time. Prior to and