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Video Games and Violence

Video games are bad for you? Thats what they said about rock-n-roll.-Shigeru Miyamoto. This quote has
quite a powerful meaning behind it and similar quotes have been said by several people over the past few years.
There are many types of stories about people doing very violent things due to different forms of media such as
social media and especially violent video games. There is still quite a lot of controversy surrounding video
games and the effects that they have on people and if they are the reasons behind such conflicts. The conclusion
of which has have quite different opinions over rather the positives effects outweigh the negatives. There have
been some studies into the matter which have lead to several different conclusions but most generally lead to a
similar result.

Even though some people believe that violent video games can desensitize people to real life violence, the
positive effects of gaming greatly outweigh the negatives because the rate of crime have lowered due to more
people playing games, allowing people to vent out angry and that several studies have shown that there are no
true correlation between the two. All of these effects have been found in multiple stories done by people over
the past decade who have done various different studies and experiments into any effects that might occur and
how they would affect the person playing them. Although most have been consistent, there have been a few
where the results ended up as inconclusive but most studies generally ends up the same way. As such many
people who research the topic agree with the former as for the result that video games have on people.

Gaming gives me a chance to just let go, blow somebody up and fight somebody from another dimension. Its
all escapism.-Wayne Brady. There have been massive debate over whether or not video games help contribute
to violence. Most studies generally agree on that video games can actually help people vent out their frustration

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which can also relieve stress. As such in people play more video games generally have more ways to relieve
their stress compared

to those who do not play any. According to a report named Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games
on Violent Crimes which was done by several respected academic scholars, it was showed that playing video
games can keep one busy and as such would not be able to cause violence and other crimes in real life. It has
actually been shown that when new violent video games are released, there is actually a reasonable decrease in
crime rates.

The conclusion of the study states that while regulations in the video game industry are usually based on the
notion that they can have negative social effects, there are actually no true link between the amount of gameplay
and the rate of violence. This also have been shown in other studies done by other researchers. The negative
effects of playing violent video games are very minor and have little to no visible signs. With all of the results
from the study, the scientists have come to the conclusion that instead of increasing violence among the masses,
it can actually lower the amount of violence which can lead to a lower amount of crime that occurs.

It has been seen time and time again in various different studies over the years that there is not any true
correlation between playing violent video games and the rate of real life violence. Out of the studies that have
been over the topic they often end with the result that there is not a reliable or confirmed link between the two.
A study done by Christopher Ferguson shows this as well. According to the study ,even when video games sales
skyrocketed in the past few years, the amount of youth violence has went down to its lowest in the past forty
years. A lot of other studies done on the topic years back often used measurements that had nothing to do with
real life violence and failed to factor in other issues such as family violence, gender or any mental health issues.
It should also be noted that back when California attempted to ban the sell of violent games to minors, all

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research studies on the issue was ignored with the judge saying These studies have been rejected by every
court to consider them and, with good reason.

It was also shown in the study that there is no long term link between the playing video games and violence
such as youth aggression and dating violence. Due to the fact that most violent games usually require more time
needed to understand the gameplay, it can actually cause some people to not continue playing them for long due
to the complexity of gameplay and might leave them slightly ignored. However this can easily be avoided if
they are given time to actually learn the mechanics of the game. Another study published in Media Psychology
resulted in similar results as well as in several other studies done by different people. Only about 3% of children
showed a pathological effect from playing video games and even then most children usually learn the difference
between reality and fantasy like a video game setting by a certain age.

A similar point of interest that has been criticized for several negative effects is social media which has not been
shown to increase violence which didnt have any effect on the amount of violence that can occur in youths. It
should be noted that people have often said that violence in youth have been caused by a new sensation that has
results in few unfortunate violent stories, most of the crimes that have occurred is generally not related in
anyway and this can be seen throughout the years. The early cases of this can be found way back in the 1940s
when people would sometime complain about the violence that could be found in cartoons at the time which
include cult classics like Tom and Jerry and many others.

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It has also been said that another negative effect of playing violent games is that people can become addicted to
it and this can lead to several other problems. A recent case of this world from Russia where a man is suing the
company Bethesda for their recent video game due to him becoming so addicted to the game. It should be noted
that while some might agree with him and that there should be some kind of warning that this could happen, it
should be up to the person to know when to stop playing them and is up to them to know the difference between
fantasy and reality. It should also be noted that in cases like this, there have been a few times when preventing
one from playing video games have

resulted in the person to become violent when they can not gain access to playing them. These cases however
happened rarely and most people generally do not behave that way and can usually understand that it is not a
necessity.

Another effect that video games have on people is that they can be used to help vent out angry which can be
seen in several cases. According to the study Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin video games can
have have this effect if people play violent video games with that intent, In the study, the researchers was asked
to remember a time when they were angry which resulted in the participants to get them angry. They were then
asked to play a shooting video game for four minutes. Half of the participants just played the game while the
other half was told to play the game with the intent to vent out their angry. The results were that the participants
who played the violent video games were less likely to responded words that would cause aggression than those
who only played the video game without that goal. The researchers once did a similar study years back and
similar results occurred when they had people play video games or slam doors and those who played video
games calm down more quickly than those who didnt play them.

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A lot of statistics gathered over the years showed this as well which is noticeable by the amount of how the
graph dropped over the years. This graph created by Adam Thierer in the study of Violent Video Games and
Youth Violence shows how the amount of violence in youths have decreased over the years while the sales of
video games have increased. Compared to the 1990s when the rate of youth violence was a lot higher, there was
less video games sales at the time. Since the increase of video games sales increase the amount of youth
violence has decreased significantly which has been seen from other similar studies and experiments done. This
is one of the things that people often uses as a positive to playing video games and have been shown to be fairly
consistent in most studies.

Even though there have been a few cases where people have done radical things and play video games there are
no true correlation between video games and violence. As such this shows that there are very little negative
effects from playing violent games. Some of this positive effects have been shown to be quite helpful to many
people and can actually help prevent violence.

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Works cited
Bailey, Ronald. "Kill Pixels, Not People." Reason feb 2015: 16 DB - SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr.
2016
"No Link Found Between Movie, Video Game Violence and Societal Violence." NewsRx Health &
Science (2014 Nov 23): 111 DB - SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
Rosenberg, Alyssa. "Stop Pretending We Can Use Pop Culture to Predict Mass Murder." Washington
Post - Blogs 2015 oct 28: N.p. DB - SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
Tmg. "Violent Video Games 'reduce Crime'" RSS. 30 Sept. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
Staff, Proquest. Violence in Mass Media Timeline. Leading Issues Timelines, 2013. N.p. DB - SIRS
Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
"22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth Violence - Violent Video Games - ProCon.org."
ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

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