Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Mrs VanRiper
English 10
13 May 2019
Video games are a widely discussed topic today. For good reason, seeing as 72% of teens
play video games (Lenhart). One of the main talking points about video games is whether or not
they cause players to act violent, and there is many people that believe they do. But, video games
For starters, there is plenty of studies showing video games do not cause violence. For
example, a recent study from the University of Oxford, being called “one of the most
comprehensive studies to date,” agrees video games don’t cause violence (Barder). This is
certainly not the only study that shows this. Some studies even show there is positive benefits to
video games, such as cognitive benefits like reaction time, decision making, and memory; and a
study on teenage boys showed they allowed them to work through frustration and that they use
them as social tools (Gray; “The Role of Violent Video Game Content in Adolescent
Development”). Why would you let an unbacked, even opposed, belief that video games cause
violence stop your kids from playing games when there is solid proof that they positive benefits?
There is also a correlation in the decrease of violent crimes and video game sales. A
study that analyzed crime rates a month or so after a surge in video game sales showed that crime
rates, especially violent ones, drop. (Carey). In fact, since 1996 video games sales have more
than doubled while from 1994 to 2010 juvenile crime rates fell by more than half (Carey). If
video games caused people to act more violent, then why would there be this correlation and
why would the crime rate go down so much while video games have become increasingly
prevalent in today's society? It’s possible that these games provide the players with an outlet for
their frustrations.
Lastly, the Supreme Court even agreed that video games do not cause violence. In 2011,
California attempted to pass a law banning the sale of violent video games to minors and the case
got taken to the Supreme Court. In the Supreme Court's majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia
said “Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video
games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act
aggressively. Any demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects
Some people may claim that there are still studies that show video games cause violence.
But, many of these studies are flawed. In 2013, 228 researchers, psychologists, and academics
signed a letter disavowing previous APA research because it was so flawed (Tach). The letter
said there was “methodological flaws, ideological biases, and conclusions drawn from
inconsistent or weak evidence,” (Tach). In the Supreme Court case talked about in the previous
paragraph, they had also rejected to consider evidence they relied upon because “most of the
studies suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology,” (“Only a Game: Why Censoring
New Media Won't Stop Gun Violence”). So many of the studies that claim video games cause
violence are very unreliable and flawed. The results would not be the same if the flaws and
In conclusion, there are many reasons to believe video games do not cause violence.
There is many studies that back this, there are positive benefits to video games, crime rates go
down when video game sales go up, the Supreme Court agreed, and much of the evidence that
says they do cause violence is biased or unrealistically tested. It is time for video games to no
Bailey, Ronald. “Violent Video Games Don't Make Players More Violent IRL.”
reason.com/2019/02/14/violent-video-games-dont-make-players-mo/.
Barder, Ollie. “New Study Shows That There Is No Link Between Violent Video Games
www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2019/02/15/new-study-shows-that-there-is-no-link-bet
ween-violent-video-games-and-aggression-in-teenagers/#584d0b9d328e.
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Feb. 2013,
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www.engadget.com/2018/03/07/video-game-violence-trump-meeting-esa-nra/.
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theconversation.com/its-time-to-end-the-debate-about-video-games-and-violence-91607.
Ferguson, Christopher J. “Video Games Don't Make Kids Violent.” Time, Time, 7 Dec.
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Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 1 Feb. 2016,
www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/06/teens-technology-and-friendships/.
“Only a Game: Why Censoring New Media Won't Stop Gun Violence.” Mediacoalition,
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nce-research.
“The Role of Violent Video Game Content in Adolescent Development.” SAGE Journals,
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