Media in the United States has a prominent role on the youth of America. A majority of children and young adults have access to internet, television, radio, newspapers, and video games practically any time they want. The violence in media, along with the availability of media are increasing, however the most predominant form of media for children is video games. Because of this, many are concerned with the effects on the youth. The violence in video games is a cause for aggressive emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in the youth of America.
Media is defined as the main means for mass communication. Video games, television, radios, newspapers, and the internet are included in this category. Video games, defined by Oxford Dictionaries, are
…show more content…
The virtual world can be an introduction to violence that might one day translate into the real world.
One reason violence is easily translated to the real world is because of the social learning theory. The social learning theory claims “behavior is learned through imitation of attractive, rewarded models” (Sherry, p. 412). Video games have a powerful effect on players due to the high attention levels of players and the fact that players can actively identify with the characters on the screen. Players are also directly rewarded for the violence that is committed virtually. This reward mechanism could possibly transfer to violence committed in the outside world.
Along with the social learning theory, researchers explain the effects of violent video games using the general arousal model. This model explains “arousal is a heightened, nonspecific drive state” (Sherry, p. 412). Because of this, the arousal from media will heighten the response of an individual. In terms of video games, the violence that is experienced in a game will provide the necessary arousal to heighten aggressive responses.
Several studies have discussed the neo-associative networks or priming mechanism as an explanation for the effects of media on aggression. The priming effects theory of media influence claims that cues from violent content may lead to aggression or hostility because of the priming of semantically related informational nodes (Berkowitz & Rogers, p. 80). The priming effects theory
A ponderous medium of media is video games in co-relation to violence. Video games encourage violent behavior in children as they are at a crucial stage of adaptation.
Video games have become very influential on children and adults (Stafford, 1999). With violent video games humans are more prone to act aggressively, to have aggressive thoughts and become numb towards violence (Harding, 2009). Apart from these they are
The main argument of this article is that video games have a direct link to short term and long term aggression. The author presents this argument by providing studies from peer reviewed articles that all conclude that video games do cause an increase of aggression. The main point of this article is to answer the question, “Do violent video games lead to aggression.” The article is about the effects of violent video games leading to aggression. The author uses recent examples, like the Sandy Hook and Washington Navy Yard shooting. In both of these examples, the author cites that both shooters had a history with playing violent video games. The author uses a study which selected individuals to play violent video games for a certain period of time. The study would then compare the results to a group who played non-violent video games. The study concluded that violent video games cause a direct link in aggression due to humans reenacting the actions the characters within the video games perform.
Video games are prevalent among impressionable children and teenagers. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the violent themes used in video games. Teenage shootings in schools have led society to question the relationship between video violence and criminal activity. After considerable research, expert opinions, and research findings, the American Psychological Association found that there is no link between gaming and criminal behavior (Casey). With this, the pursuit of video violent games continues to grow in our society. With games that show execution style murders, blood oozing from gunshot wounds, and victims moaning from wounds, it certainly is gratifying for the indulgent player. The ongoing concern about aggression and violence has once again been proven to be non-existent (Alert). My thoughts are that this cartoon like violence is appeals to the need for violence in an artificially designed environment. In this manner, violence is contained within the boundaries of fantasy. This is unlike “The Crucible” which occurs in with real people, events, and situations. Thus, directing violence in the realm of societal dysfunction that has endured with
The paper discusses how violent video games affect a person's behavior and if they manifest violence and show aggression in the real world after playing such video games. I learned that not all people who are exposed to video game or media violence turn violent. I think it depends on the person if he wants to get influenced from the game, to mimic what the game shows. This is just like the next source, discussing about what kind of behavioural problems violent gaming brings about.
Mass media is communication that reaches a large audience. This includes television, advertisement, the Internet, newspapers, and so on. Mass media is a significant effect in modern culture in America. It creates ideas and sustained within society not only send ideological messages out to the public but to advertise this ideas which are tend to manipulate our mantalities.
Americans have been blaming violent forms of entertainment since colonial times. From dime novels to music, to movies to television shows. The most recent medium are video games. Aided by crime-saturated news reports, a lot of people are convinced that video game violence transfers to real-life youth crimes like the school massacres. They think that violent video games make people violent, but that is not the case. Violent people play violent video games. Not everyone who plays video games are violent, but those who already are violent will play them as an outlet for their frustration and rage. If anything, video games keep violent people from going out and killing people in real life because they can vent in the virtual world.
Additionally, although violent video games might expose children to violent behavior, the amount of violence are not as great as the ones in movies and television. The news is filled with stories of war and murder, and nearly every movie contains some forms of violence. Plus, these two media are different from games in a very important way because they involve real people, not computer-generated characters. One of the social psychological science faculties in
The social learning theory of highly-reputable psychologist Albert Bandura has been applied to understand the correlation of aggression and video games. Bandura’s theory emphasizes the importance of observation of human behaviors, ideas, and personalities of one’s environment. Bandura claims that human beings are more likely to act aggressive after observing models that commit aggressive acts. However, the only way that humans will emulate the aggression seen in the model (e.g., video games) is if the act goes unpunished or rewarded—a component saturated by video games. In the case of violent-oriented games, the gamer is rewarded directly. Whether it is receiving an extra hundred points aiming from the head of a zombie or simply receiving a kill streak when you kill a certain amount of people, the promotion of rewarded, violent behavior are highly identifiable in violent games. Additionally, the aggression-enhancing effects might be too powerful for a teenager’s mind that is unable to recognize the difference of “video game life” and real life. Players who are consistently and directly punished for violent behavior learn that this violence is not acceptable and, therefore, reconstruct their behavior to gain rewards. However, beholders who play games that reward violence may consequently learn that violence has a positive consequence of extra points, more achievement medals, and higher status among peers. Teenagers transcend this belief of rewards and violence when they put down the controller and live their life. Developmentally, teenagers are less able to discern reality from fantasy and are more likely to be emotionally and cognitively affected by the violence they observe, which can result in the increased likelihood of committing a violent
Technology is an important aspect of change in our world. As time goes on, we are introduced to more and more technology every year, which includes media such as video games. The increase of technology has also increased and improved the world including ways of communicating and distribution of information. More often used outlets of media are those used for entertainment purposes, like television, internet and video games. The ones who are most likely to engage in these media outlets are millennials and the most recent generation Z, because they have been introduced to these outlets from a young age. In fact, a study found that children spend around 9 hours a week playing video games (Polman, de Castro, & van Aken, 2008). It is evident that video games are progressively becoming more violent in nature, and with children spending as much time as they do playing video games, there are questions that must be asked, is the violent nature of video games effecting today’s youth? And if so in what ways?
In their research of violent videogames and the effect on children, they have found that “the simplistic belief that exposure to media violence will lead directly to individual violence is clearly wrong.” (Kutner, Olsen, 2008) I am going to ask you to look deeper than this. I assert that although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it.
There are indicators that links playing violent video games to increasing aggression in young people. Teenagers who are expose to violent games are more supposable to increase the likelihood of experiencing aggressive thoughts, in which turns into the likelihood of engaging in physical aggression against another person. Furthermore, violent video games produce an emotional desensitization to aggression and violence to the youth (Anderson). Based on the observation teenagers are exposed to when they are playing violent video games, they will reenact almost immediately in real life if the situational contact is sufficiently similar to the ones in the games. Therefore, consumption of violent video games produces negative behaviors that are controlled by negative
Since several video games contain some sort of violent content, it has been hypothesized that gamers nowadays tend to be more aggressive. Gentile also states that “playing violent games increases aggressive behaviors, increases aggressive cognitions, [and] increases aggressive emotions.” This is an intense list of negative consequences, but what makes violent games instill such hostility? Many video games today include multiplayer in addition to classical single player modes. With real life opponents, gamers are much more competitive and inclined to demonstrate dominance over friends and real life opponents. Whereas facing a computer can be competitive, there may be a stronger feeling of satisfaction after defeating a nonvirtual enemy which could translate into real life aggression towards real people. Though correlation does not mean causation, the fear that violent video games may increase problematic antagonism is clearly not misplaced.
Violent games are often played by kids, and kids are the main group of people who have desire to win. So, this mentality causes them get more and more angry, which may directly led to crimes. It is easy to have a casual effect after losing a game. That could makes people want to play another round, until they addicted into games. Children are still growing, and they start another game because they lose the last game, and this cycle will make the children more addictive. If games play more, they will feel immersive, it will give people a fake impression, and will affect the children 's growth. Also it influencing people’s time, this may cause children have less time to feel our planet, the outside world. Some of them are limited by violent video games, because they already addicted by those games. Secondly, violent behavior in reality is often caused by violent video games. People who likes to play violent video games are easy to get confused about reality and virtual. People are very focus when they play games, games could let people feels they are the character in the game. It could make people get angry, and once they finished their game, back to reality, they also may still think about the game, and want to have a chance to experience it, whether the result is as same as the game or not, and this could lead them to have a strong violent behavior in reality. Violent video games may change
“Recent contents analyses of video games show that many as 89% of games contain some violent contents” (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, Walsh 3). More than half of video games being sold around the world contain some form of violence. All of the violence involved in the video games being played by children is a pattern leading to aggression. Aggression can be caused by many things; however, violent video games are the main cause of aggression in young adults. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad, Alto 1). Thinking that violence in the virtual world is the same as in the real world is the first step to showing aggression. Aggression in children caused by video games is the biggest effect parents and researchers worry about. Violent video games teach children that shooting and killing people are