Preview

Violent Video Games Are Not Linked To Real World Violence Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
507 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Violent Video Games Are Not Linked To Real World Violence Analysis
“Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about rock and roll.” -Shigeru Miyamoto
Blaming video games for real world violence has been an honored tradition for the past few years. It has gotten to the point where the people pointing fingers neglect to take any personal accountability. Parents simply want someone to blame for their own children’s violent behavior. Video games are an obvious scapegoat, but what they forget is that someone has to buy the video games. There is also the little known fact that youth violence is down. Furthermore, video games are a reflection of the world surrounding us. This leads to the question, how does a group of pixels lead to violence and murder? The answer: It doesn’t.

To begin, Parents have the tendency to search for an external force to blame when tragedy strikes. It is much easier than taking some responsibility for
…show more content…
Video games can only reflect cultures that already exist. The author of the article “Violent Video Games Are Not Linked to Real World Violence”, Torrey Meeks, confirms this with the following assertion “On that basis, video games say something about our culture; they don't make culture.” According to “Violent Video Games Are Not Linked to Real World Violence”, video games are a form of art which can address current issues of concern. This is touched upon when Keith Feinstein states, "I was frightened to death back then, and Missile Command was a perfect reflection of that. It turned everyone's attention to the issue.” The gritty nature that some video games choose to showcase, is merely a reflection of the real world. People are murdered, sometimes with brutality and for no good reason, this has been a fact before video games were a thought. When a video game highlights this, it isn’t a matter of wanting to badly influence the youth, it’s a matter of divulging truth to the common

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Blame Game Anaylisis

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence toward women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for stimulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable behavior. Although critics believe this to be true, there are some people who believe otherwise such as Roger Pilon, who expressed his thought and ideas on the matter in an article he wrote that appeared in the Denver Rocky Mountain News paper on May 9, 1999, entitled “The Blame Game”. In this article he elaborated on the issue of video-game creators being held liable for for the crime that are committed today especially among the youth, for example the Littleton tragedy. Pilon speaks on how not only video game makers, but the media in general all have the right to create and advertise whatever they want by way of the Constitution and the only person who should be blamed and punished for a crime is the direct person who committed the crime. This is revealed by way of the audience Pilon intends to reach through his article which is law enforcers, and parents of video game players all to say that its not the video games that is causing the crime but its the individual.…

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Final for Wr 122

    • 1967 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Rampage, shootings, killing, murder, blood, and gore are all things that people think of when they hear the words, “Video Game.” Video games have quickly taken on the role of being harmful too kids. Could this be true? Crime rates have been on the rise for the last five decades, so we must ask do video games have anything to do with this? Are video games destroying our children? Every time a school shooting happens people look for something to blame. Furthermore, in the more recent decades people have been blaming the violence of video games, for in these games you have weapons that you often use to kill people or other things with. These games have been said to be extremely graphic and aggressive and have many parents worried. However, after reading many essay’s including, “Art Form for the Digital Age,” by Henry Jenkins, and “Do Video Games Kill?” by Karen Sternheimer, I changed the way that I viewed video games. Before reading these essay’s, I felt as if video games had no other purpose but just to be aggressive, but now I see that video games are not all bad, for they are also a form of art, and art is not to blame for children being violent. Therefore, video games do have other purposes and are not completely bad for kids.…

    • 1967 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the past 20 years society has fallen victim to mass murders perpetrated by children, even though overall crime is down. In order to better understand this; social scientists are conducting studies on whether violent video games contribute to this cycle of violence or are they just a tragic coincidence. In “violent Video Games: Dogma, Fear, and Pseudoscience” Christopher Ferguson argues that there is no significant contribution to video game violence and the up-tick in youth violence seen today. However, David Grossmann in “Trained to kill (children who kill)” argues that video game violence not only contributes, but also trains children how to…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Violent crimes and aggression can be motivated by violent video games. Columbine school shooters(Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) and theater shooter(James Holmes) all played these games. They would play these games for long hours daily. Studies show violence is motivated by the games that kids are playing. They act out these violent and illegal actions on their games and then do them in real life. Most of the teens in todays generation can honestly say they have played a violent video game at least one time in their lives. Therefore, they have had to act out a violent action. There are many ways this can affect a child's behavior in a negative way.…

    • 888 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    While many parents scoff at letting their children watch violent movies, they often consent to buying violent video games for their teenagers without checking the industry ratings. Researchers contend that a link exists between violent video games and real-life violence in teenagers and young adults. Violent images don't necessarily create violent children, but gamers learn that violence is an accepted means to solve problems, and they perfect shooting skills as though they were handling real weapons. Even though games can teach children valuable coordination skills, parents and caregivers need to make sure that their children only view age-appropriate content and are made aware of the difference between on-screen actions and socially acceptable behavior in the real world.…

    • 1360 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Do Video Games Kill

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages

    According to the article “Do Video Games Kill?” author, Karen Sternheimer, brings up an interesting and controversial subject about video games. “If we want to understand why young people, particularly middle class or other stable environments, become homicidal, we need to look beyond the games they play.” Sternheimer starts her article by giving an example of the video game “Doom” that became a target for critics. Shooting at the schools in Kentucky, Oregon, and Colorado were most probably caused by video games. The author sticks to this explanation because of many influential opinions from politicians, news, and different groups of people. Media is providing information to the public about shooters being the ones who are playing video games.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thousands of teens play violent video games. It is a very large industry in the United States. In 2008, over $11.7 billion was spent on video games and 10 of the top 20 bestselling video games in America involved violence. These violent video games are being blamed for bullying, violence towards women, and school shootings. The games teach children that it is acceptable to solve problems with violence. Violent video games are a large contributor to youth violence.…

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Ivory, James, D. "Violent Video Games: If You’re Looking for the Causes of Serious Aggression and Violence in Society, Stop Playing Around with Video Games." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. 19 May 2013.…

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Skinner’s argument, “Stop Pointing the Finger at Violent Video Games,” the point he is trying to convey is that crime has gone down since 1975 when they did not have video games. Therefore, video games cannot be the blame for kids and teens acting more violently if studies show crime has gone down. Skinner disagrees with critics who say video games make people violent because he plays video games and done not act violent. Jordan Skinner’s argument is valid because I myself play violent video games, as do many of my friends, and none of us have violent behavior.…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Body Paragraphs

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In recent years, we’ve heard on the news of youth crime increasing. According to Cheryl K. Olson, M.P.H., S.D., “it is impossible to know exactly what caused these teens to attack their own classmates and teachers … one possible contributing factor is violent video games.” It 's very difficult to document whether video and computer games contribute to violence such as criminal assault. However, we can conduct a study on how violent games may contribute to some types of violence and aggression and to the beliefs, attitudes, and interpretations of behavior that support them. “Another issue is whether and how the effects of video game violence might be compounded by exposure to violence in other media. Cautious interpretation is necessary, since there is always the risk of confusing cause and effect or correlation with causation.” (Nov/Dec 2002). Technology is constantly changing and advancing, with Internet and console gaming, so researchers have to make intervention efforts more resultant, and to focus on which children are at risk of such behavior. We must focus on developing direct educational and policy interventions based on solid…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Video Games Cause Violence

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Video games have always been a great landmark in the history of the human race and how great and advanced they’ve become since their creation. Video games also have their own timeline and certain points in time in which major controversy has arisen. Newscasters have made full reports on how video games are the major contributor to thoughts and actions of violence in the minds of all who have purchased them, either being adults and all the way down to children of all ages. Even though newscasters and reporters may be seen as respected and credible sources this topic has always pinned video games as the culprit but they were never the ones to blame.…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Article Rebuttal

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Controversial subjects comes in all forms and fashions and sometimes presents disagreements within. The controversial subject that I have chosen has been around for many years and have allowed individuals to take a stand for their opinions about the situation. “The debates on video games violence has arguably been narrow, in that it assumes that such games have only negative effects and ignores the possibility of positive effects”. (Ferguson, C.J, 2007) Within the Article it provides stability and creditability in the problem of violence in video games. The Article is called Negative Potential of Video Games by Russell Sabella, but instead of focusing on the facts of how and why this is an issue it provides facts the boys demonstrate these acts far more and singling this gender out within the article. With the validity of this important information that needs to motivate our youth this article depicts that boys will see and demonstrate more violent acts. Understanding that the main focus should be the youth, only boys were singles out and this article also assumed that boys show a greater tendencies to be aggressive due to the motivation of video games “This is especially true for boys who seem to show greater tendencies to be aggressive and to seek out higher media violence exposure”. (Russell A. Sabella Ph.D., 2013) Video games contributing to youth violence and have demonstrated negative actions which caused support groups to stop the creation, sales, or renting to individuals under the age of 18 due to negative acts of harm represented by the youth. The influence that the video games present to the youth consist of aggressive behavior, violence, school shootings and even bullying. “Recent highly publicized school shootings; reports of gang; young people obsessed with violent video games, movies, and song lyrics; and media prone to…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Final

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The scientific debate over media violence effect “is basically over”. Researches are now shifting their attention to video games, which have exploded in popularity and are exploding with increasing brutality (Myers). Educational research shows that “video games are excellent teaching tools” (Myers). In 2007 the video-game industry celebrated its 35th birthday. Since the first video game in 1972, we have moved from Ping-Pong to splatter games. By the turn of the twenty-first century, Americans were purchasing some two hundred million games a year, and the average girl was playing six hours a week and the average boy twelve hours (Anderson). In the popular Grand…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War are just three of many grossly popular video games today, and they have one main thing in common: violence. Whether one is shooting down Nazi soldiers on the beaches of Normandy or sawing apart Locust drones on the planet Sera with his or her lancer, one is engaging in extremely violent video-game action, and probably having a lot of fun doing so. With the rapid growth of intensely violent games, parents and politicians across the nation have begun to protest against violence in video games and have even gone as far as to say it is the cause of violence in America’s youth. Is this really true? Are video games the problem? Just like the rock and roll movement of the 1950’s being blamed for youth delinquency,…

    • 1941 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Violence In Video Games

    • 2444 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The controversy surrounding violence in video games stretches back to 1976 and involved violence against stick figures. Over the years, violent imagery has increased in the frequency it appears in games and in the graphic depictions of violence against people and animals. Concerned parents, activists and researchers have long suggested that viewing such material is inherently harmful to children and adolescents and encourages criminal behavior. When people looked for reasons why two teenage boys would murder their classmates at Columbine High School, violent video games were blamed in the press (McKibben,…

    • 2444 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Best Essays