BellaOnline Forums Computers Computer - Console Gaming Help Do Violent Games Cause Violence?

But this was part of my point...
Kids these days are not used to real blood - they see it as a game. Violence is a game, they become desensitized to it.

I'm not saying that every child that plays violent video games is going to become violent - just like every child that has an alcoholic parent may not become an alcoholic. But I think it does up the ante.

No I do not believe violent games cause violence, I think it's the change to society and the way we look at things and the changes to how we are brought up and such.

I mean I've played many first person shooters like Ghost Recon but it doesn't make me want to go buy a rifle and shoot people..

I think it all has to do with how the child is reared. if they have a parent that gives them positive discipline, and a good moral compas, then they will have the necessary tools to make the right decissions when it comes to violence. just because children play games that have high levels of violence does not mean they are going to go out on a killing spree.
Being desensitized to violence isn't necessarily a bad thing either. If a child is cuddled and not allowed to experience what the world is realy like, they will not know how to function when they are beginning to go out on their own. if they have an understanding that there is mass qunatities of viloence inherent in the world they might be able to protect themselves better in the long run and not have such a major shock when they see what unfortunatelly happens in some parts of the world.
You can never blame the influences that a child has (i.e. violent video games, hard core music), you can only blame the child and the family in what they do and the decisions they make. the parent has the right, and the obligation, to limit how much a child can play certian types of games and certain types of music. if they can provide a wide range of any influence, positive and negative, in their offsprings life, then they will be able to make good decisions and have a more well rounded life.

There have been news stories about kids who have committed violent acts and when asked why, they said they saw it in a video game. I agree with others that the violence committed after seeing it in a video game is based on the child's state of mind and their upbringing. Gangs and violence were a part of everyday life back in the late 1800's and early 1900's when the influx of people emigrated to the US from other countries. These gangs and violence and such were formed out of necessity because education was lacking and poverty was rampant. People formed gangs to survive.

People who live, eat and drink violence will more than likely commit violent acts at some point in their lives. I agree that blaming it on video games is a convenient scapegoat. Television and comics books have always been full of violence starting with simple cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner. I used to watch those shows religiously but I never had an inkling to go out and paint the side of a hill black to see if I could use it as a tunnel. I never thought about leaping off a cliff in a phone booth and stepping out of it before it hit the ground to see if I would be okay and I certainly never had an inkling to hit someone on the head with a mallet to see if I could make them accordion shaped.

That being said, do I think there are unneccessary violent video games out there? Yes. I believe that games like Bully and Grand Theft Auto glorify violence against people and we are sending terrible messages to our children when you can score points in a video game by beating up policemen and stealing their cars or teaching children how to sneak up behind someone and garrote them in order to kill them.

No, video games do not make the average person want to commit violent crimes anymore than television shows or movies do but that is just my humble opinion and if you don't agree with it, I will hunt you down.

The argument should not be over video games and violence. There just isn't any evidence to support this assumption. As jonie.bell noted, there are no statistics that point towards an increase in violence despite the rise of video games. Furthermore, Yankee Group reported that there are now 124 million PC gamers in the US, yet the youth demographic, the one most likely to be affected by this, has not experienced a correlative increase in violence according to U.S. Department of Justice.

Do video games result in more aggressive thoughts and, in some cases, behavior? Studies indicate that they do. Will this have a negative effect upon children? It probably will. The debate needs to be centered on these effects and how they can be controlled through the regulation of violent games.

When it's suggested that video games cause violence, the debate degenerates as anecdotal and experimental evidence points towards negative effects, while statistical evidence indicates that these have not translated into appreciable changes in the level of violence. Even those who speak of the ill effects of video games admit that other factors contribute more to violence than games. In the cases where kids said that they were imitating a video game, the only effect the game had was on how the violence was executed. Concern should be placed on why he was spurred to violence, not on what affected what happened afterward.

Video games have negative effects, which is why they should be regulated, but they don't include violent ones.

I guess I don't mean so much that a video game is going to "brainwash" kids into going out and shooting up a mall or something - I'm just disturbed by the overall trend in the increase in violence in the games (and in movies and other forms of media.)

I even caught myself doing it the other day. I described shooting up some alien spacecraft as being "cathartic" after a stressful day, then I thought "that's actually kind of a sad thing to think!".

It is just the desensitizing to violence that I worry about.

Definitely, the more violence you see, the more desensitized you become. It happens with everything, not just violent video games....the more people you see smoking, the more likely you are to smoke; the more eco-friendly or green people are around you, the more likely you'll be to pick up those habits. What we expose ourselves to rubs off on us, whether it's good, bad, or neutral.

I think the nature/nurture balance comes into play here. Some of us born aggressive, and the video games will affect those people differently than it affects people who are more passive by nature.

My favorite video game is Smash Up Derby -- I LOVE driving those huge T-Birds into other cars! I like seeing the cars spew black smoke and the fenders fall off, and it is a way to relieve stress. So far it hasn't translated to me driving people off the road (though I HAVE visualized it while driving!). I play once a year at my in-law's house; if I played every day or every week, would I visualize driving people off the road more? Probably.

Anyway.....I like video games, and at the same time I do think they can negatively affect us.

Interestingly, they've done studies with people about anger release. They did the test sneakily so the people didn't know they were being tested on this, so the subjects couldn't deliberately alter the responses.

They deliberately made people angry (without telling them they were doing it). Half of the people they then gave pillows to punch as a "test this pillow's resiliency" test. Half the people were given a "write out your feelings" test. So in essence one group was doing physical / destructive release, the other group was doing more of a meditative release. Then they asked both groups to do a "fill in the missing letter" test with things like

R A ___ E

K I ___ ___

So the words could be a variety of words. The pillow bashing group came up with words like

RAPE
KILL

while the meditative group came up with words like

RAKE
KISS

So while you might think doing pillow bashing, car smashing things make you feel better - and certainly it's better than bottling up emotions - it really is setting you into an angry frame of mind. You just feel good about being angry On the other hand if you relax with meditative, stress-releasing techniques you also feel good at the end - but you are actually peaceful and happy.

So that's interesting to think about! Yes car bashing can feel good to release that energy - but if instead you played a puzzle solving game you'd get the same release and end up happy and content.

I think a large part of this depends on what age the individual was exposed to the violent games. In today's society many parents use television and video games as a babysitter which is really not the answer. And they let their children watch and play video games really meant for adults.

At a young age, children have trouble determining the difference between what they see on tv and reality. Therefore, being exposed to such violence they may come to believe that is acceptable behavior. It is up to parents to teach them right from wrong.

So, while I don't think that violent games should be used as a scapegoat for violence in general, I do believe children should be kept from being exposed to such games until they are the appropriate age.

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LOL Lisa, when I get mad I immediately go to my pro wrestling video game and start beating people up in it. It is a nice stress relief for me.