Over the years, as technology significantly improved, the popularity of video games has also increased. However, there is an issue: there are more and more violent and bloody related video games that have taken over the market. Due to the improvement of technology, video games are now able to create more realistic scenes giving users a rich sense of experience. Rich sense of experiencing realistic violence is a dangerous sign that can lead to many furthermore consequences. As a result, a player’s violent behavior in real life may increase to look for the same excitement that he or she has experienced online.
However with that new capacity for experience has come a new capacity for showcasing violence in games; and this new capacity for witnessing violence has led to worries about how these video games are affecting children. Author Kenneth (2005) has pointed out that, violent game characters have attributes that are likely to increase the extent to which some players perceive them as attractive and similar”(Kenneth A. et al. 2005). When a player encounters a similar and attractive character in a violent game, he or she will use his or her real-life problems to vent violently in the virtual world.This behavior is often difficult to realize, and the unconscious becomes habitual over a long period of time so that when similar situations occur in real life, the player is more likely to choose the most familiar way to solve the problem, which is violence.
You’re developing the idea that violent video games have negative effects on youth.This would benefit from more research support to help provide the audience with more examples of how this issue occurs. Right now it’s only 1 quote and then you shift to discussing the debate. Need to establish this issue more first.
Debates
The debate on the impact of video games has been going on for several years. There are studies that point out how video games have positive impacts on players, such as improving one’s ability in social cognitive development. Author Patrick Markey points out that, Another unique social advantage afforded by online gaming is anonymity, because it can offer those who are socially withdrawn an opportunity to interact. For instance, emotionally sensitive teens (i.e., those who are overly sensitive to the nonverbal and emotional cues of others) often turn to games to expand their social network and maintain their real-world friendships”(Patrick M et al. 2020). Social networks do give people an opportunity to expand their horizons. Many video games are set as group work to complete and a task or challenge and from there players interact with one another that can be in any parts of the world. Working toward one reward with another human player, teaches and lets players practice social skills that can generalize in real life.
Researcher Dr Vincent Matthews, a professor of radiology at the university, observed that after playing violent video games, ‘these adolescents had an increased activity in the amygdala, which is involved in emotional arousal”(Matthews, Year) ). While research has proven the change in brain activity among adolescents, there is no doubt that violent video games do increase the activity in the amygdala and at the same time it decreases the activity part that is responsible for self control. Violent video games have a significant impact on the behavior of children and adolescents, which leads to increased aggression and desensitization to violence behavior.
The research on the impact of violent video games on children’s behavior is a complex and controversial topic. Violent video games impact players in multiple ways, such as increasing aggressive behavior, desensitization to violent actions and concerns on players physical health condition. The level of impact on individuals is different due to their age, gender, and situation. For example, author Lavinia Mclean from the international Journal of Cyber behavior, Psychology and Learning has pointed out that, “Previous researchers have argued that children are less able to draw appropriate distinctions between aggression in fantasies and in reality, and that this may affect their ability to comprehend the appropriateness of the use of aggressive solutions portrayed in violent video games (Huesmann 1998; Smith & Donnerstein, 1988)”(Lavinia Mclean et al. 2013). While childrens do not have a mature cognition on things, exposing them under various violent scenes will affect their recognition to violence. Therefore their desensitization to violence actions or the likeliness of using violence to solve issues is definitely much higher. Furthermore, author M. Siervo’s study points out how violent video game is impacting physical health, “Watching television and playing video game being seated represent sedentary behaviors and increase the risk of weight gain and hypertension. We investigated the acute effects of violent and non-violent video-game playing on blood pressure (BP), appetite perception and food preferences”(M. Siervo et al. 2013). From this study it finds that violent video games appear to experience a high increase in diastolic BP, which would lead to cardiac stresser if continuously increasing.
This issue is significant as violence behavior is becoming increasingly important for countries’ future crime rate, economic, and society security. Therefore, online learning and the growing environment is concerned when so much violence is being shown to childrens and adolescents.
Methodology
Models for aggressive behavior: the attributes of violent characters in popular video games
Kenneth A. Lachlan needed a sample of video games in order to assess the risk they pose. Any character traits or context video games provide pose a risk for any impressionable gamers, who may begin to pick up violent traits. To begin, the team needed to decide which games to study, and decided to focus on popular gaming systems: Sony PlayStation, Nintendo, and Sega Dreamcast. They choose 20 games from each system – based on their sales rankings – ending with a total of 60 games (Kenneth A. et al. 2005). For each game, they collected the first 10 minutes of gameplay as a representative sample. In those 10 minutes, the researchers looked for and coded (categorized) certain characteristics that they saw. The variables the paper lists are all significant in considering the risk factor of video games, with most being significant because they make a character more impressionable. The first thing to code for was violent interactions. The team coded a total number of 1389 violent instances in the total of 600 minutes of content (Kenneth A. et al. 2005). Next, they coded for demographic characteristics of the perpetrator of violence: things like species, age, gender, and apparent ethnicity. Each demographic variable is subcategorized to be more specific, such as species splitting off into human, animal or other. Next, they code if the perpetrator is either portrayed as a good character, a bad character, or a neutral character. Eventually, this category was changed to “liked” or “disliked” to place emphasis on the position that “good” characters have as role models. Moving to the next variable, the team’s reason for the violence was labeled as “justified” or “unjustified”. Lastly, the consequences of the violence were noted (things like visible injury, death, and bloodshed) and the severity categorized as none, mild, moderate, or extreme.
Violent Video Games and Attitudes Towards Victims of Crime: An Empirical Study Among Youth
Lavine’s study intended to find correlations between exposure to video games and a decrease in attitude towards victims of multiple kinds of crimes. They were specifically looking for if violent video games make gamers less concerned for victims. The researchers gathered a sample of 129 male gamers and 76 female gamers, for a total of 206 people. There is a distinction between genders here because of previous research, which suggested that violent video games affect different genders differently. These participants were sourced from four second-level schools (ages 11-18/high school) and one third-level school (college,university). This distinction is for age. Older children play more games and are argued to be more partial to using violence.
After the participants were gathered, Once these participants (or their guardians) signed consent forms, they were given a questionnaire. The initial questionnaire was based on the Victim Concern Scale, a 21 part questionnaire that asked participants to rate their concern for different types of victims. The researchers had to edit the questionnaire to fit its mostly young participants: a few questions were taken off or modified, and the input method was changed to be a scale rather than an input box. Participants were informed that the data collected will be anonymous and that if they wished to withdraw at any time, they could do so by using their given ID number. Once participants consented, they were given three questionnaires papers and an A4 envelope. Once done, the participants were to put the questionnaire inside the envelope and hand it in. Then, they were given the video game questionnaire. This questionnaire asked the participants if they ever played video games, if they ever used the listed types of video games platforms (console, Xbox,mobile phone,etc), how often they played these games the last week, and to list what their top five games were. All these questions, except the first, were on scales – and the data was used to find the average of that participant’s scores, this number will represent the amount of exposure for that participant. A higher number represents more exposure to violent video games, and a lower number means lower exposure to violent video games.
Forty-eight normal weight, non-smoking, 18-30 year olds were recruited and then separated into 3 groups, 16 in each. One group was instructed to play violent video games, the second was instructed to play non-violent video games, and the third was instructed to watch non-violent television. The primary effect study was the difference in blood pressure before and after for each participant. The secondary study was differences in stress, hunger perception, and desire for food, which was scaled using a visual analogue scale.
Kenneth A. Lachlan needed a sample of video games in order to assess the risk they pose. Any character traits or context video games provide pose a risk for any impressionable gamers, who may begin to pick up violent traits. To begin, the team needed to decide which games to study, and decided to focus on popular gaming systems: Sony PlayStation, Nintendo, and Sega Dreamcast. They choose 20 games from each system – based on their sales rankings – ending with a total of 60 games (Kenneth A. et al. 2005). For each game, they collected the first 10 minutes of gameplay as a representative sample. In those 10 minutes, the researchers looked for and coded (categorized) certain characteristics that they saw. The variables the paper lists are all significant in considering the risk factor of video games, with most being significant because they make a character more impressionable. The first thing to code for was violent interactions. The team coded a total number of 1389 violent instances in the total of 600 minutes of content (Kenneth A. et al. 2005). Next, they coded for demographic characteristics of the perpetrator of violence: things like species, age, gender, and apparent ethnicity. Each demographic variable is subcategorized to be more specific, such as species splitting off into human, animal or other. Next, they code if the perpetrator is either portrayed as a good character, a bad character, or a neutral character. Eventually, this category was changed to “liked” or “disliked” to place emphasis on the position that “good” characters have as role models. Moving to the next variable, the team’s reason for the violence was labeled as “justified” or “unjustified”. Lastly, the consequences of the violence were noted (things like visible injury, death, and bloodshed) and the severity categorized as none, mild, moderate, or extreme.
Lavine’s study intended to find correlations between exposure to video games and a decrease in attitude towards victims of multiple kinds of crimes. They were specifically looking for if violent video games make gamers less concerned for victims. The researchers gathered a sample of 129 males and 76 females, for a total of 206 people. These participants are sourced from four second-level schools (ages 11-18/high school) and one third-level school (college,university). Once these participants (or their guardians) signed consent forms, they were given a questionnaire. The initial questionnaire was based on the Victim Concern Scale, a 21 part questionnaire that asked participants to rate their concern for different types of victims. The researchers had to edit the questionnaire to fit its mostly young participants: a few questions were taken off or modified, and the input method was changed to be a scale rather than an input box. Participants were informed that the data collected will be anonymous and that if they wished to withdraw at any time, they could do so by using their given ID number. Once participants consented, they were given three questionnaires papers and an A4 envelope. Once done, the participants were to put the questionnaire inside the envelope and hand it in. Then, they were given the video game questionnaire. This questionnaire asked the participants if they ever played video games, if they ever used the listed types of video games platforms (console, Xbox,mobile phone,etc), how often they played these games the last week, and to list what their top five games were. All these questions, except the first, were on scales – and the data was used to find the average of that participant’s scores, this number will represent the amount of exposure for that participant. A higher number represents more exposure to violent video games, and a lower number means lower exposure to violent video games.
Forty-eight normal weight, non-smoking, 18-30 year olds were recruited and then separated into 3 groups, 16 in each. One group was instructed to play violent video games, the second was instructed to play non-violent video games, and the third was instructed to watch non-violent television. The primary effect study was the difference in blood pressure before and after for each participant. The secondary study was differences in stress, hunger perception, and desire for food, which was scaled using a visual analogue scale.
Data Results
In the article attributes of violent character in popular video games it goes to show that there are several games and that the majority of the characters that were presented are violent actors as humans. This was compared by teenagers (sex, actions, race, and different types of perpetrators. These games as shown below are popular games among children and teenagers.
It could be said that males have a bigger population who play video games than females. Males who play video games are more than half the population which is 61% while females are only 16.3%. While going deep into the article it shows how 79% of violent acts are committed by males, compared to females it is only 21%.
While looking at the gaphiness it shows that there is a difference between Caucasian’s and Asians. It shows approximately how 12.5% of Asians are more likely to engage in extreme violence. While Caucasians are 5.8%. Overall it could be said that commuting causes more violent crimes than females, especially Asian males who have a higher percentage than Caucasians.
Violent games and attitudes towards victim of crime goes to show that there is a negative correlation between increased exposure to violent video games and an overall concern for victims. It could be said that those who play violent video games have a lower level of overall victim concern. In other words those who play violent games are not likely to commit violent crimes in real life. This goes to shows that violent video games do not have an effect that may cause teenagers to go out and commit crimes on there own.
As stated before they chose several games such as. Sony PlayStation, Nintendo, and Sega Dreamcast. These were some popular games that they decided to experiment on. Due to these experiments they calculated whether or not due it cause a high blood pressure or if they consume more food. While it has been mentioned there have been cases in which it could be said that video games have increasingly increased people’s aggression. While video games cause aggression it can also cause desensitization to violence. Playing video games can also affect our blood pressure and appetite perception. As to blood pressure and heart rate it showed that video games do not have an effect on our heart rate but there is a high effect in blood pressure if there is a violent game involved.
There was a set of n=16 participants per group. There were about 3 groups. 1 group had violent games which included (gun shooting, combat, and Grand Theft Auto). The second group had non violent competitive games such as football, FIFA 2008, EA Sports, Canada. And the thirst group had non violent TV watching such as Friends, situational comedy, Bright/ Kauffman/ Crane Productions, USA. Both group 1 and group 3 were run on a Sony PlayStation 2
It could be said as shown above that blood pressure does cause high blood pressure to be exposed throughout a several amount of minutes while there is a violent game taking place.
While there are also studies about appetite in the graph below, the only results that were shown showed that there was a perception of hunger, desire for food, prospective eating and fullness.
It could be said that hunger, desire for food, and prospective eating scores are not significantly different between all the three groups. Those who played violent games preferred sweet foods while playing their violent games compared to the other two groups. There wasn’t a difference for preferences for either salty, savory, and fatty foods.
Discussions
Based on the results given, the data clearly support the idea that violent video games have a significant impact on the behavior of children and adolescents when it comes to aggression. (Kenneth A. et al. 2005), did a study to look at violent, aggressive characters in well-known video games and evaluate what threat they may present based on demographic similarities and character attractiveness, found that when just human characters were taken into account, boys committed 79% of all violent crimes while girls committed only 21%. Essentially, a range of violent video games’ aggressive role models shows physical aggressiveness in a way that raises the possibility that various players will learn violence in different ways. Most of these aggressive characters are adults. This does particularly raise worry in terms of potential aggressive responses in adolescents if they viewed resemblance as the most crucial component in determining likely to learn behavior. However, there are more and more adult players in video games who can be influenced by these harsh role models. In addition, this presents a different scenario because kids may look to adult figures as role models in some way. Young gamers may be drawn to these characters by thinking of them as being similar to themselves, but they may also get contextual cues about reasons that have been found to encourage aggressive behavior. Research question 1 of this study asks “What demographic characteristics are present in violent characters in American video games?” (Kenneth A. et al. 2005). Results reflect the kinds of aggressive characters that are frequently seen in video games. They imply that the majority of violent characters are people, offering approachable and believable aggressive role models that players can adopt behavior from, of course, subject to a variety of other factors. Looking at other possible factors such as ethnicity, since most of the violent role models in the games given are Caucasians, a picture of the people who are most in danger of picking up violence is beginning to take shape. There are a lot of white, male abusers who young game players may see similarities within American video games aimed at male teens. In another study, (Lavinia Mclean et al. 2013), a study that looked at how young people’s attitudes toward crime victims are impacted by playing violent video games, found that male participants who played more violent video games expressed significantly less worry about being at fault as well as victims that are male participants who did not play such games, suggesting a significant relationship between exposure to violent video games and reported victim concern. This suggests that while children do not have a mature cognition of things, exposing them to various violent scenes will affect their recognition of violence. High levels of culpability (and thus less concern) were seen when adolescents played more violent video games, which is consistent with the theory that over an extended period, exposure to violent video games causes people to develop certain notions of culpability and degrees of fault. As any negative impacts of being hurt or killed in the games are minimized, disregarded, or even rewarded, the researchers claim that the structure of games may lead to the development of specific attitudes toward victims. In this way, it is possible to demonstrate how video games have an adverse effect on how people react to victims and how these findings are closely related to those of the current study.
Since desensitization to violent actions or the likeliness of using violence to solve issues is definitely much higher than mentioned earlier, the studies showed that adolescents can develop the tendency to like a character based on many factors. There was a high presence of violent perpetrators which are children or adolescents who would give game players aggressive models that they could very easily identify with and be more likely to imitate (Kenneth A. et al. 2005). If they are to believe that perceived resemblance has a significant role in the possibility that aggressive behaviors would be imitated, then men perpetrators who are at least somewhat similar to male players are what are shown in video games. Regarding age, in Lavine’s study, the older participants expressed the greatest worry for general, culpable, and general victims, while the younger ones expressed the highest concern for vulnerable, general, and victims of property crimes. The research on bullying demonstrates age-related declines in victim-liking.
Although these studies show that violent video games can impact others with aggressiveness and desensitization, violent video games are also detrimental to children’s health. (M. Siervo et al. 2013), a study where they explore the significant effects that can affect our health shows that when compared to the TV-watching group, the two video game groups in this study displayed overall stronger behavioral and affective responses. The results reveal that violent games have more substantial effects than non-violent games, and they suggest that video games may pose new health risks beyond those associated with sedentary behavior. When playing violent video games while seated and with an unchanged heart rate, a larger cardiovascular load was elicited, most likely due to the stress response being activated. The study also showed diastolic blood pressure gradually increasing in the participants who played violent video games, which, if it continued, may be a significant cardiac stressor. In contrast to watching TV, participants in the non-violent video game group of this study felt more anxious and agitated while playing, whereas participants in the violent video game group felt more awake and attentive. As a result, it’s possible that the participants in the violent video game were more distracted, which impaired their capacity to comprehend and apply the physical sensations brought on by eating and resulted in diminished judgments of fullness when compared to the other two groups.
Although this paper discusses the impact of children playing violent video games on their health, and behavior, these studies also had limitations. (Kenneth A. et al. 2005) the study saw that It solely evaluated violent content and violent video game characters. At the point of data collection, the most recent marketing research was used to inform decisions about which games to include. As a result, with the introduction of new gaming hardware and software, the data might already be outdated. They also mentioned that only the opening 10 minutes of the game were evaluated. Video games typically get harder as the length of the game increases, and one common way to do this is to add more antagonistic characters or actions for the player to deal with. Although the coding system used in the current study gives a conservative estimate of the amount of violence in modern video games, the quantity, context, and characters of violence may alter as the game progresses. Additionally, little is known about how the rising popularity of online gaming may affect the availability of violent content. It’s possible that the heightened perception of rivalry and the use of interactive characters will make gaming more realistic. If this is the case, the empirical question of how competitive and social game features affect game content and its capacity to support social learning processes is then brought up. In the Lavine study, The scales that were used can be linked to the study’s primary limitation. The results may differ because the Victim Concern Scale that was used in the current study was altered for use with adolescents. It might be claimed that players purposely downgraded their ratings of these games or that repeated exposure to the material desensitized them to its bloody/gruesome nature. (M. Siervo et al. 2013) study limitations were that the intervention only lasted for one session. If continued playing over a period of many days or weeks may be linked to lasting changes in blood pressure and body weight, the study has to be replicated using longer protocols.
To conclude, violent video games have a significant impact on the behavior in children and adolescents, which can lead to negative effects such as aggressiveness, desensitization to violent behavior and also affect their physical health condition. As a result, these studies imply violent video games can negatively affect children in a way where it can increase aggressive behavior after playing. Exposure to such violent video games, as explained earlier, can desensitize children into real life violence causing them to be more like their character that they’ve chosen. This can lead into health problems whereas they have unhealthy eating habits which can contribute to their cardiovascular health and blood sugar as well. However, there is further research that needs to be done. With more research on adults on video games but also their behavior after playing video games, would give more information on adults vs. adolescents to analyze the difference in behavior and health. Future studies should investigate more than simply attitudes and look at the various components of attitudes. Also, future research on the content evaluation of violent video games should make an effort to determine and explain these potential causes of differences in game content.
Conclusion
The studies that are discussed provide significant evidence that violent video games have different impacts on the behavior of children and adolescents, such as increasing aggression and also be detrimental to their health. These studies suggest that the exposure to violent video games can lead to desensitization to violent actions. Furthermore the studies also pointed out that violent video games increase the likelihood of using violence to solve problems. Additionally the studies indicated that violent video games may lead to health risks such as increased cardiovascular and physical sensations being brought on by eating. While these studies do provide valuable results, they also do have limitations. Future research is needed to better understand the impact between violent video games relation to one behavior and health. Still, parents and educators need to be aware of the potential risks of violent video games and make sure that children and adolescents are not exposed too much.
Overall the idea of whether technology is good or bad for society is a complex topic. We can say that it has both positive and negative effects. Such as technology has led to task finishing easier and faster but it also comes with a lot of challenges like addiction and social isolation. However, the role of technology will continue to evolve and it is important to continuously make adjustments. Technology is just like any tool, it is the ways of how it is being used that determines if it’s beneficial or harmful. Therefore, it is important to promote a kind and healthy environment online. With that being done well enough, it can even prevent or decrease the violence and aggression in society.
