Do Video Games Cause Violence?

What the title says =o doing a report for school and was looking for some input from the gaming community :3 figured my fellow 11 fans would be good ;o Sure you've all played many other games.

Personally no, I don't think video games cause violence. I think that it desensitizes us yes, but not CAUSE it. Maybe even to some extent help REDUCE violence; someone can go blow ***up in a game rather than go stab someone.

Ideas? :)

Simply put, no video games do not cause violence, anyone who says they do needs to just go die in a hole. Aside from that your other points have merit too.

There was another thread with almost exactly the same title a month or so ago...

ANyways video games don't make people violent and I will kill anyone that disagrees with me

It's easy to blame video games from a parten point of view or "Adult" for that matter if: your kid does not comply with what you ask them while playing a video game, they yell back at the parent, eventually commit some short of violence , the parent will react as "It was that video game fault" , now lest swap places : kid ask for help mother watching TV, parent watching sports game, kids get turn down. parents get divorced, but do they ever blame it on their TV shows.. course not.

Its easy to blame what they do not understand, yes there been incidents were a kid shot him self/parents/friends and the cause was a video game.. well not, It was the guy daddy was keeping inthe house. Video games dont kill people... Weapons on the wrong hands do.

Really? =o I'll go look it up real quick then.

Also: lol! xD

btw I told Shiroi at least Dasva (ninja edit name), Spicy , poupee or Darky will reply >.> 1 score so far!

Only games made for meatheads like call of duty.

I lol'd

there have been tons of teens that are jailed now and they said that video games influenced them (specially first person shooters, what about those teens that wants to sing up for the army because they are biased/influenced by mwf2 like few friends that i know

Have you done any research? Anecdotes and opinions aren't likely to be much use to you if you're actually writing a paper.

Start here:

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2000-2004/01ab.pdf
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Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Sex, 12, 353-359
Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2001).


http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~dgentile/106027_07.pdf
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Violent video games: The newest media violence hazard. In D. A. Gentile (Ed.), Media violence and children. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishing
Gentile, D. A. & Anderson, C. A. (2003).

No.

End of story.

I suppose that's not very helpful for your report tho <_<

I'm not really sure what to tell you. I guess I'd suggest finding the main argument for why people say video games cause violence, and completely dismantling the argument in it's entirety.

Hes obviously looking to copy and paste what we say without having to cite it!

Some thoughts to consider!

There hasn't been any scientific proof that video games influence violence, for reference it may be noteworthy to research Jack Thompson and his attempts at destroying the industry, he's a joke among the community but probably the best outcome of his career was that he actually proved games don't cause violence (kinda the opposite of what he intended).

The biggest accusations against games (specifically with the school shooting cases) was that games can teach you/train you to handle things physically and mentally better than someone else. For example you can learn how to point, shoot and reload a gun, if there's an accurate presentation of someone making a bomb within a video game, the player will know themselves how to do so in real life. So that's true, but games have a lot of fallacies too, you don't kill real people in FPS, you don't experience realistic recoil, fear, anxiety etc. Respawns are unrealistic, things like that immediately help us detach the game world from the real world without even being aware of it.

Additionally, games also compound consequences on the player. GTA for example, free roaming god like experience? Nope, do something bad and there's a penalty. We may enjoy doing it since the penalty isn't real, but it's still subconciously teaching us stealing a car or shooting someone is wrong, in fact it's because of that penalty that the game escaped a lot of charges in the past.

Violence amongst teenagers has actually reduced since the 1990s, around the time the gaming indsutry came into it's own after the late 80s collapse.


Source is two years old but his point still stands, video games become more realistic and more graphic each year, if video games really did influence violence by this point the world would surely be in chaos.
Actually (though my memory is vague) one of the counter points to a Jack Thompson case was that gamers are actually inside more often, rather than out on the streets, lowering the crime rate. So yeah, venting whatever teenage frustrations you have on a video game is win-win, feel better and no jail time.

I also disagree that video games desensitise players, though it would vary greatly player to player. If anything they help us empathise more with the characters, you could even argue they help people appreciate life when they sit through a graphic war game (hi2u MW2 "No Russian"). They also help breed inspiration and creativity, since games too are a form of art.

In conclusion movies have been depicting violence among other things for far longer than games have, video games actually maintain a bridge between reality and the game world reminding you it's not real.

So no :p

I played Americas Army (versons 1.7 trough 1.9) out of the 20+ friends I made over it and about 6 of them I knew IRL only 1 really went to the army , went trough Irak and came back, never shot a gun as she was a driver and mechanic, Americas Army is the offical US army game sponsored by them and openly say "It's a recruiting tool" yet didnt make all 20 of us go for it, I play Halo and Monder Warfare, a meathead its a meathead with or without a video game at hand, HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE kids that blamed it on the video game was couse: a) they are HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE and had nothing better to say or b) were forced to say influenced by someone againts videogames in exchange of a easy way out or easy treatment due to their dumbness. Could say the same for about any MMO rpg.. you exp wile killing. you get items by .. killing. poor NM's dont bother anyone , we go pop them and force them to give us the loots and gilz.. Halo : you kill alines, crap ton of alines movies main characters kill alines, but no one claim the movie was bad influence . Anyone remember American History X? was blamed for racist acts after its releaze why? same reason video games get blamed for .

point 12 kids the last 5 years. not tons just 12.

Video games don't cause violence, if someone already has a violent nature they`re more likely to go shoot someone than a person without, regardless of the kinds of games they play.

The people kids hang around with have more baring on their mental health than a game like MW2.

Oddly enough the people they hang out with are on MW2 and other meathead games.

Not all kids have their faces glued to a games console 24hrs a day though.

People are inherently violent. It's in our nature to take what we want. It's perfectly natural to want to lash out when hurt. Video games and of course other media certainly desensitize us but the urge is our own and how you act upon them says more about your upbringing them your exposure to violence

Final Fantasy 13 made me want to kill people.

I really believe that certain games DO have some influence on people, especially young developing kids. If they have no influence at all then why are there ratings on games so that others don't play them? I admit, when I was younger I played games like resident evil when I was like 10~12 years old. Those games back in those day were a lot more tame compared to what we have now though. I wouldn't doubt games having some influence on younger people.

I assume this was aimed at my post...

What good is all the nonsense being spouted in this forum thread if he's actually writing a paper?

I'm guessing he's not seriously working on a project if these responses are his source material.

Would it kill him to read, understand, and cite some studies? No matter what grade level, a project on video games and violence requires actual research.

Could help him w/ his paper and use these as popular opinions for general use. Gives him ideas on what to work towards in paper etc, shouldn't use these as source of course but it could help in some way.

^ this
see: Papa roach - Blood brothers

cite   
[sahyt]
–verb (used with object), cit·ed, cit·ing.
1.to quote (a passage, book, author, etc.), esp. as an authority: He cited the Constitution in his defense.

wat?

There's ratings because people who have never played a video game in their life *** and moan. It's probably just a mental trick to make parents "feel good" about video games, and makes the industry look "responsible". Everything is based off of image.

I love how people enjoy pointing their fingers at games. There is movies, books and even religion have super violent stuff in them. Just deal with it and when your kid shoots up the school blame the kids parent

She~