Kala Dunn
English 1304-12749
August 6, 2013
Violent Video Games Argument Summary In his article “Violent Video Games and Other Media Violence,” Dr. Craig A. Anderson, Iowa State University’s Director for the Study of Violence and cited expert on all things related to violence as it coincides with media, attacks violent video games and television for causing an increase in violence amongst young people. Throughout his article Anderson draws legitimacy from psychological studies intended to find scientific truth in debates regarding violent video games and their relationship with the psyche of impressionable youths. Anderson treats the article as more of a presentation of facts than an actual argument, allowing the findings to speak for themselves.
Anderson begins by presenting the questions that the studies intended to answer; firstly, whether or not there is a measurable association between violent media and aggression and, secondly, if that association, assuming that there is one, is casual. In the paragraphs following the given parameters for the experiments, Anderson asserts the overwhelmingly positive correlation between violent media and actual violence. Some of the research which he presents claims that the increase in heart rate and other general symptoms of arousal experienced while playing a violent video game simulates actual violent responses. This fact is then stretched to infer that this simulated violence can do just as much for an individual’s likelihood to seek violence as a means to an end as actual violent experiences. Anderson recognizes that many contradictory studies have been done regarding the relationship between video games and violence, though dismisses them as nothing more than poorly executed experiments with faulty findings. He concludes by conceding that this impersonal violence will likely have little to no effect on a well-balanced individual, though categorizes media violence as a risk factor that, when combined with other risk factors can have potentially deadly results.
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Cited: Anderson, Craig A. “Violent Video Games: Myths, Facts, and Unanswered Questions.” Psychological Science Agenda. American Psychological Association, Oct. 2003. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. <http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-anderson.html>.…
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