About 73% of American children aged between 2 and 17 were playing video games in 2019 an increase of 6% over the previous year. Video games comprised 17% of children’s entertainment time, and 11 percent of their spending on entertainment.
The worldwide video game market contributed $159.3 billion for 2020. This is a 9.3 percent rise of 9.3 percent from the previous year. Also Read: How to Make Big in Little Alchemy 2?
Video games that are violent are often linked to school shootings an increase in bullying and violence toward women. The argument of critics is that the games make players less receptive to violence and reward players for simulated violence and instill in children that violence is an acceptable option to settle disputes.
The video game industry advocates claim that the majority of studies on the subject are inherently flawed and that there is no causal link has been discovered between video games and violence. They claim the fact that video games with violent content offer a safe outlet for anger and aggression and can decrease the rate of crime. Find out more about on the background.
Pro 1
The playing of violent video games can cause an increase in aggression, bullying, and even fighting.
60 percent of middle school boys and 40 percent of girls in middle school with at least one mature-rated (M-rated) game smashed or beat someone up, as opposed to 39 percent of boys as well as 14 percent of girls who didn’t play games rated M.
A peer-reviewed study published that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that repetitive gaming that is violent has a direct correlation to an increase in long-term aggressive behavior.
Numerous peer-reviewed studies have proven that kids who play games with M ratings have a higher likelihood to bully or cyberbully their peers. They may also engage in physical fights and fight with teachers and display aggression toward their peers during the school year.
Pro 2
Simulation of violence, such as shooting guns or hand-to-hand fights in video games may result in real-life violence.
In video games, players are often required to imitate violent actions, for example, shooting, stabbing, or dismembering someone using an ax, sword, chainsaw, or any other weapon.
Game controls are advanced as well as the game’s gameplay is so real, that playing games that simulate violent acts helps the ability to learn those violent actions.
A peer-reviewed study in 2015 revealed, “compelling evidence that the use of realistic controllers can have a significant effect on the level of cognitive aggression.” Also Read: How to Make Seed in Little Alchemy 2?
Two teenagers from Tennessee shot at cars passing by killing one of them and told police that they had the idea after gaming Grand Theft Auto III.
Bruce Bartholow, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri, spoke about the negative effects of playing games that simulate violent behavior: “More than any other media, violent video games promote the active involvement in violent acts.
From a psychological point of view, they are fantastic teaching tools since they reward players for participating in certain kinds of behavior. However, in many of the well-known video games, “the game’s theme is violent.”
Pro 3
A lot of the perpetrators of mass shootings were violent gamers.
Kevin McCarthy, US Representative (R-CA) said “But the concept behind these games that make people play an opportunity to shoot people and other players – I’ve always thought that this is a problem for the future generations as well as others. We’ve seen from studies previously the harm it causes to people. When you look through these images of the way it (mass shootings) took place it is possible to see the activities within video games, as well as others.”
Numerous mass shootings are committed by avid video gamers: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the Columbine High School shooting (1999); James Holmes in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting (2012); Jared Lee Loughner in the Arizona shooting that wounded Rep. Gabby Giffords and injured six others (2011) and Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway (2011) and confessed to having used playing Modern Warfare 2 for training. . Also Read: How to Make Tool in Little Alchemy?
An FBI school threat assessment for shooters stated that a student who uses threats to commit violence should be believed to be more credible if or is also spending “inordinate amounts of time playing video games with violent themes.”
Dan Patrick, Republican Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick, the Texas Lieutenant Governor, stated: “We’ve always had guns, always had evil, but I see a video game industry that teaches young people to kill.”
Pro 4
Violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence.
Desensitization of violence was defined in a Journal of Experimental Social Psychology peer-reviewed study as “a reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence.”
The study showed that twenty minutes playing violent video games “can cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence.” People who are not accustomed to violence have a higher likelihood of committing violent acts.
At the age of 18, American youngsters will have witnessed 16,000 murders and 200,000 instances of violence in violent films, video games, and on television.
A September. 2011 peer-reviewed research study discovered the causal connection between video games that are violent with an upsurge in aggressiveness, as a result of a decrease in the brain’s reaction to images of violence from the real world.
Studies have shown that people experience less physiological and emotional responses to violence, both in the short and long term.
In a peer-reviewed study from 2005 exposure to violent video games was found to be associated with lower P300 amplitudes in the brain, which are associated with the desensitization of violence and the increase in aggressive behavior. Also Read: How to Make Wood in Little Alchemy 2?
Pro 5
In the presence of the role of violent video game characters, children tend to mimic the behavior of the characters and are unable to distinguish the real from the fantasy.
Video games that are violent demand active engagement and an identification with violent characters which encourages violence. Children tend to confuse fantasies of violence with actual violence. And without any ethical framework, it is possible that they will mimic behaviors they observe in violent video games.
Children Development and Early Childhood Education Expert Jane Katch stated in an interview with Education Week, “I found that young children often have difficulty separating fantasy from reality when they are playing and can temporarily believe they are the character they are pretending to be.”
US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissent to Brown in Brown. ESA that “the closer a child’s behavior comes, not to watching, but to acting out horrific violence, the greater the potential psychological harm.”
