Do Violent Video Games Cause Aggressive Behavior?
Amanda Cummings
Essay Lesson II
Do Violent Video Games Cause Aggressive Behavior?
How and why does mass media influence aggressive behavior? More specifically, does playing video games cause aggressive behavior? Because children and teenagers spend an increased amount of time each day viewing/playing video games, they are shaping their values, attitudes, and behaviors. For people who do act out aggressively, the results can be deadly. Monthly, the news is filled with blood-chilling accounts of crimes committed due to a copy-cat obsession with violent video games. This paper will present a brief review of literature and reveal the difficulties in answering this question with certainty. For the past 40 years, since the first video games were created, the gaming industry has developed games that would surpass other games before it. Since the late 70’s, when the first two games of “Pacman” and “Space Invaders” were created, video games have changed tremendously over time. Violence was not realistic, blood was not red, and so violence in video games was not incorporated into the new games that appeared on the market. In the early 90’s, video game makers began using much more detail of violence and blood into video games. This caused an increase in violent video game demand and an increase in realistic violent events incorporated into these games. With technology in video games enhanced, the productivity on violent videos games moved up as well. When a game called ‘Mortal Kombat’ was released with a gruesome death seen in the game, the US Congress had to intervene. They told the gaming industry they had to come up with an accurate grading system to rate the games on age-appropriateness and content-appropriateness. This brought on the “Entertainment Software Rating Board.” While rating each video game and posting that rate on them has improved access by small children, teens and young adults can still buy and view very violent scenes. In 2007, there
Essay Lesson II
Do Violent Video Games Cause Aggressive Behavior?
How and why does mass media influence aggressive behavior? More specifically, does playing video games cause aggressive behavior? Because children and teenagers spend an increased amount of time each day viewing/playing video games, they are shaping their values, attitudes, and behaviors. For people who do act out aggressively, the results can be deadly. Monthly, the news is filled with blood-chilling accounts of crimes committed due to a copy-cat obsession with violent video games. This paper will present a brief review of literature and reveal the difficulties in answering this question with certainty. For the past 40 years, since the first video games were created, the gaming industry has developed games that would surpass other games before it. Since the late 70’s, when the first two games of “Pacman” and “Space Invaders” were created, video games have changed tremendously over time. Violence was not realistic, blood was not red, and so violence in video games was not incorporated into the new games that appeared on the market. In the early 90’s, video game makers began using much more detail of violence and blood into video games. This caused an increase in violent video game demand and an increase in realistic violent events incorporated into these games. With technology in video games enhanced, the productivity on violent videos games moved up as well. When a game called ‘Mortal Kombat’ was released with a gruesome death seen in the game, the US Congress had to intervene. They told the gaming industry they had to come up with an accurate grading system to rate the games on age-appropriateness and content-appropriateness. This brought on the “Entertainment Software Rating Board.” While rating each video game and posting that rate on them has improved access by small children, teens and young adults can still buy and view very violent scenes. In 2007, there