Keyona Washington
Mrs. Treglown
Comp Two
June 23, 2014
Violent Video Games Cause Aggression
There are many people around the world that allow their children to play violent video games and play games that has violent things on them. I feel that young children should not be allowed to play video games that have violent things in them. Violent games can make young kids look at things in the world differently. There are thousands of games now days that show things that could drive a child to possibly do something to hurt someone just because they could do it on their games. Those games could change the mindset that kids have and possibly their attitude towards things. Violent video games are not supposed to be made for young kids to play although there are many young children who do play them. There should not be games available for people to buy that could cause their children to think more aggressively. When there are young kids who play those games at a young age, they are more likely to do violent things in the future because of their easy influence ways. I am an older sister of a five year old boy, and I do not allow him to play any games that are violent because he is always wrestling and doing moves that he can do on his wrestling game. Children pick up on everything when they are at a young age. Having violent games in the hands of young children could possibly make them become very violent and aggressive as well. Violent video games can be fun and used as a positive look for many people. However, it does cause aggression in children and adolescents around the world because of the things that are happening in the society today when children play those types of games. Since the late 1970’s, when the first two games of “Pacman” and “Space Invaders” were created, video games have changed so much over time. From the late 1970’s through the 1980’s video game makers used what was called an 8-bit graphic system, which limited many features they could put in video games (Porter &ump; Starcevic, 2007). Violence was not realistic, blood was not red, and so violence in video games was not put into the new games that appeared on the market. In the early 1990’s, video game makers began using a 16-bit graphic system which would enable them to put 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 put into these games (Porter &ump; Starcevic, 2007). In the mid- 1990s a new type of games came out that was known as the “First person shooter.” In this type of game the player is able to kill one another in a high level of aggression, violence and killing. There are many arguments that are for and against violent video games causing aggression in young kids and adolecents in the world today, For example, in the article written by the medical student of Harvard Medical School, they gave facts on the American academy of pediatrics (AAP):
The AAP policy describes violent video games as one of many influences in behavior, noting that many children’s television shows and movies also contains violent scenes. But the authors believe that video games are particularly harmful because they are interactive and encourage role playing. As such, the authors fear that these games may serve as virtual rehearsals for actual violence.
In that article they believe that violent video games do cause aggression in kids at a young age and as they become adolescents. Another popular argument is found in the article “ Yes, Violent video games do cause aggression” published in the Psychology today by Jean M. Tugene a professor at San Diego State University that tells how violent video games do cause aggression. It tells about the sandy hook elementary shooting and how the shooter of the school was a violent video game player. There were many different studies that showed that this was true. The researchers used meta- analysis and over 134,000 people