Why violent video games does not cause violent behavior
Psychology 105
Wagner
13 March 2014 Children have many influences in participating in violent activities. Owning a violent video game does not necessarily mean it's a negative aspect that can cause involvement in these activities such as fights in school by our children. There was an experiment done that may say otherwise; however, not every aspect was accounted for in this experiment which makes it invalid. This experiment alone convinced me that violent video games in fact does not have any influence to children participating in violent activity at all. I personally have played video games that are considered violent and I do not associate myself with any kind of activity that is violent. Referring back to this experiment, I will demonstrate the other factor that were not recognized making this argument invalid. There have been many experiments regarding this argument. This specific experiment however, involved 200 children ages 10-14 that have males and females and divided equally by age and gender. Half of these children were required to play Super-Duper Macho Zombie Killer Man while the other half did not. The result of this experiment concluded that the half that played this video game were more violent, ensuring that they were involved in violent activities. Many people believed the violent game is what caused this result because that is the only thing they can blame that would make sense to them. This would be an example of the appeal to ignorance fallacy because there is no evidence to prove otherwise. However, how do we know how long these kids played this game and to what extent? Or how do we know that the children who did not play this video game was not involved with friends that were bad influences resulting that they are not involved in violent activities? We are unaware of the experiences and activities the other half of children, who were not required to play this video game, participated in. Being aware of every aspect in an
Wagner
13 March 2014 Children have many influences in participating in violent activities. Owning a violent video game does not necessarily mean it's a negative aspect that can cause involvement in these activities such as fights in school by our children. There was an experiment done that may say otherwise; however, not every aspect was accounted for in this experiment which makes it invalid. This experiment alone convinced me that violent video games in fact does not have any influence to children participating in violent activity at all. I personally have played video games that are considered violent and I do not associate myself with any kind of activity that is violent. Referring back to this experiment, I will demonstrate the other factor that were not recognized making this argument invalid. There have been many experiments regarding this argument. This specific experiment however, involved 200 children ages 10-14 that have males and females and divided equally by age and gender. Half of these children were required to play Super-Duper Macho Zombie Killer Man while the other half did not. The result of this experiment concluded that the half that played this video game were more violent, ensuring that they were involved in violent activities. Many people believed the violent game is what caused this result because that is the only thing they can blame that would make sense to them. This would be an example of the appeal to ignorance fallacy because there is no evidence to prove otherwise. However, how do we know how long these kids played this game and to what extent? Or how do we know that the children who did not play this video game was not involved with friends that were bad influences resulting that they are not involved in violent activities? We are unaware of the experiences and activities the other half of children, who were not required to play this video game, participated in. Being aware of every aspect in an