Media+Violence



Video games: highly popular, but highly controversial. For years there have been arguments revolving around video games. Around the violent “first person shooter” or “FPS” genre in particular. Many believe that children playing these games will become violent in real life, as they are spending hours upon hours killing and brutalizing people on-screen. But there are also those who do not think that violent video games make kids more violent. Often these are people who actually have kids that play violent video games and are not violent from it.

 Those who believe that violent video games cause violence in children have their reasons. Most violent video games are given an “M” rating by the ESRB, exactly the same as an “R” rating by the MPAA. These ratings are for parents to know some of what possibly offensive material the game might contain, and the age group it is appropriate for. But children are playing games that are clearly marked as inappropriate. Added, young children can have a hard time distinguishing reality from the fantasy world within the games. Many hours spent killing on-screen victims in the developmental stages of a child's mind could alter their mind, almost being programmed thinking killing is a fun thing to do.

 Ratings aside, there are other reasons violent video games could be bad. A gamer himself, former Lt. Col. Dave Grossman belives that violent video games are “helping transform children into unflinching, deadly accurate killers.” He finds that violent video games are nearly identical to military training simulations, designed to train soldiers to use weapons and mentally prepare them for killing the enemy. He taught at West Point and Arkansas State University, and has written two books about killing, and how violent media is making killers of children.(Gregory)

 But there are those who don't agree that violent video games cause violence in children. There is no solid evidence linking violence in video games to violence in real life. (Gregory) A former Marine sergeant who designed training simulations claims that these video games are nothing like training simulations and they even teach bad combat techniques, saying “if your real targets are sprites on a screen and you're handling a plastic pistol that shoots beams of light, these games will make you ready.” Many believe that video games are not a cause of violence, as much as it can help kids get their aggressions out on virtual enemies, rather than being destructive in the real world. They think that the problem with violent children roots back to a more fundamental problem such as bad parenting, or mental instability. (Gregory)

 One woman, Wendy Stogner, a mother of three, wrote an article on the subject that violent video games do not in fact cause vioilence in children. She stated that her three children all played violent video games, and none were excessively violent. She expressed that in the end, it is the parent's decision to allow their children to play violent video games and to make sure they know the difference between reality and what they do in video games. She also says that if for some reason a child does seem to become more violent after playing video games, it is a parent's responsibility to take action whether it be talking to their child or preventing the child from playing such video games. (Stogner)

 I myself do not believe that violent video games make children more violent. I and almost all of my friends play violent video games, and none of us are excessively violent. There is no hard factual evidence that proves that violent video games cause children and young people to be violent, only speculation and circumstantial evidence. The article about Dave Grossman stated that the kids behind more than one of the school shootings played violent video games, but I have read another article that cited almost all major school shootings were carried out by kids taking psychiatric drugs with side effects including thoughts of violence and suicide. Also, the argument that video games are training kids to kill or brutalize people doesn't quite hold water, as in many popular video games the enemies are aliens, or zombies, and other such non-human targets, which is not at all the same as taking up a real gun and physically shooting a human being.

 While video games are forever sparking controversy, they go on being played. As many think that they are causing children to become violent, they lack the evidence to back the theory up. Those who oppose the idea that video games make children more violent have a more realistic argument, attributing youth violence to more basic fundamental factors such as “dysfunctional parenting or a slow emotional response.” (Gregory) I personally do not believe that video games cause violence in children, but I do agree that too much time spent playing video games can have some negative effects.