Do Violent Video Games Cause Aggression and Violent Behavior? - Essay Sample

Introduction

As modern technological innovation increase, video games popularity continues to grow. Although the video games are more popular today, they have been in existence since in the 1970s. There are many types of video games. However, violent video games have been recorded to be of high preference than any other kind of video games. People of all generation especially those exposed to a turn of media from the developed country more so have come across a tremendous amount of media violence in films, video games, music videos and TV programs (Wesley and Barczak 16). Today there is also a recorded rise in violence and violent activities among people especially teens and athletes. Such reports have resulted in the need to investigate the influence media violence on the reported increased cases of violent acts and aggression. In this essay, therefore, violent video games will be explored examining whether they influence violence among people or not. This will be achieved by providing a guided assumption on how violent video games impact on people behavior resulting to cases of aggression and violence

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Video Games Popularity

The popularity of video games grow annually, every teenager on earth has a video game designed to suit his or her preference. In the United States, over 40% of the families own a video game system (Wesley and Barczak 38). Records also show that approximately all elementarily students and those in junior high have played video games at home. What is fascinating is that as the children grow, the more the number of hours they record to be spending on video games. Those in elementary and middle school and an average of an hour every week on video games but those in upper academic level spend between 6- 10 hours on video games in a week (Greenberg et al. 241). Families in America too and most developed country spend most of their capital on video games than in movie tickets, the statistics have enticed some filmmakers to quite their filming jobs to tap the video games market which is a growing gold mine. The video gaming market is competitive as the investors in that area venture into rising technological capabilities to crush the traditional video games.

Violent Video Games

According to Wesley, and Barczak (132), surveys in the video gaming market statistics show that the violent video games are the most sold compared to all other video games and most people reveal a high magnitude of preference on violent games. Some of the most sold video games in the market were "Mortal Kombat" and "Killer Instinct" games that involved death and struggle. As time passed the two games triggered the development of more bloody games with improved characters and finishing moves, the games also featured violent action such as burning people to their skeletons; chopping opponents heads off among other dreadful acts. Such dreadful gaming innovation continues to be polished up-to-date. The today's video games visuals and audios are high-tech and lifelike, and this is more prevalent in violent games. When it comes violent video games preference, most teens today show a high preference in violent games than any other form of gaming. The girls have a high preference for fantasy violence games while the boys show a preference for human violence games. Although there are games for adult youths and children due to content appropriateness variation, of which those for adults are marked and rated as "M" most teens and children have shown higher interest in them, and children widely play them. For example, the "Grand Theft Auto series." (Adachi and Willoughby 68)

Why People Play Violent Video Games

Violent video games have been studied more so with the intent to reveal the negative impact it has on people. Researchers also need to look into the positive side of violence games, and whey people play them. The video games are used for other purposes for example entertainment. The violent video game remains quite attractive to many people for different reason. Some experience excitement when playing and they play them often to escape boredom. Other groups of people represent to showcase their prowess and impress their friends, and this is common among the youths. Also, violent video games have some educational impacts as most video games are challenging and require a lot to obtain stimulation

Violent Video Games and Rising Violent Acts Among People

As the intense video games, preference enlarges in the market, and there is a worrying change in children and people's behavior. Many individuals who are into violent video games are unable to distinguish between fantasy playing and reality. The dreadful instances of violence are more on children and adolescents of which they are copying what they learned from video games and causing mayhem in their social scenes such as school, neighborhoods and playgrounds.

Brief Scenario

In my neighborhood, the number of video gaming centers is on the rise. More and more teenagers are spending over 6 hours on average seated in these places playing video games. According to research by Ferguson et al. (201), more than 90% of the video games that are produced contain some violence even in their titles such as "Manhunt," "Mortal Kombat," "Gears of War," and "Thrill Kill" among other names. The number of violent crimes involving the teenagers is also on the rise. This begs the question if there is any correlation between video game violence and real-world violence. Late July last year, in Munich Germany, an 18-year-old gunman killed nine people. Investigations into the incident revealed that the teenager was a fan of several first-person shooter video games. The uncovering of this detail in the unspooling story of the rampage led many people to worry about the effects of violent video games on their children.

Correlation Between Violent Video Game and Violence

In the past, studies have been done to investigate the correlation between people violence and video games. The research has caused a contradiction as some say that there is a connection, while others try to show there is no connection. The intriguing aspect of violent video games and others is the fact that, one does not only interact with the game visually and physically by when controlling the joystick. The game has a featured aspect that demand one to interact with the game emotionally and psychologically too. Persons playing the game often escape reality and become characters in the game (Valadez and Ferguson 95). The deep indulgence in the match blur people from distinguishing fantasy behind video games and reality.

Theories and Models Applied to Test Whether a Correlation Exists

Different scholars continue to investigate how playing violent video games may result in one exhibiting violent behavior and various approaches are involved, and many factors are looked into in this case. According to Brockmeyer (73), studies indicate that violent video games players are commonly reported with violent acts. This is an assumption generated by 227 self-reported graduates, with violent crime recorded were assessed. During the process, however, other factors such as innate, gender aggression and environmental violence exposure were identified to have an impact on the graduate's aggressive and violent acts. For example, when male and female violent video game players were compared, the Male violent video game players were more violent than other genders in this case. Such results trigger the need to know whether other factors cause and play on rising incidents of violence or are it the excessive violent gaming that causes the increased violent behavior.

Social Learning Theory

According to Huesmann (51), Social learning approach was used to determine the relationship between violent video games and violent behavior. The social learning model borrows its path from the General Aggressive Model to explain the current practice of violent gaming players. The General Aggressive Model shows how people behave under certain circumstances are influenced differently. According to the AGM model, the more a person is exposed to intense actions or stimuli, the more the aggressive cognitive scripts are identified and easily manipulated into action especially when one is exposed to hostile environments. The Social learning theories, therefore, in this case, show that the passive means through which one is exposed to media violence will often result in one into engaging in violent behavior regardless of other factors such as genetics, personality and family environments (Huesmann 83).

Based on the social learning approached violent Behaviors, in this case, can be acquired through constant exposer to violent video games which cause increasingly aggressive thoughts and physiological exciting. What is unknown is to the duration the aggressive behavior is bound to last. Force related incentives such as violent video games are likely to provoke either long or short term violent behaviors.

Innate Motivational Theory

The theory tends to explain that the constant playing of violent video games does not cause the violent acts. According to the method, some people have the aggressive behaviors in them naturally, and video games only play on such biological aspects. Some aggressive criminal acts and antisocial conduct in this case can best be explained by natural factors (Krahe et al. 794). People who are genetically violent grow to maturation with great aggressive personality and readily respond with violence when exposed to the offensive environment. Such people when stressed may also get easily violent as a response mechanism.

Based on the innate motivational theory findings, violent video games and violent media is not a cause of violence but a catalyst. Violent video games in this theory act more as stylistic catalysts. People born with a violent personality often borrow from social media some fighting, defense and violence skills. In this case, when using the innate motivational theory to explain violence and video games, it can be concluded that video game violence is not the cause for the person's violent behavior but somewhat impacts on its violent forms (Ferguson, 80).

Examining both theories, it is evident violence in video games impact on people from different angles. Some people might be influenced to act violently after long periods of exposure to violence while another number are violent naturally and when triggered they act impulsively. For such people, video games have another different impact. They tend to use the tactics from video games to fight, and this can be damaging.

Other Factors That Explain Violent Video Games and Aggression

Although video games are favorite across the world, the participants and players are influenced differently. Ferguson et...