Violence in Video Games

By: Makenna Calderon

            Video games have such an impact on society especially in adolescence and teens. When you play a certain type of video game for a long period of time, you will start picking up habits from the game or the characteristics of the characters an that is not always the best. There have been multiple studies done on what effects video games have on teens and their aggression and how violent they are if they are violent. According to “The Effect of Violence and Competition within Video Games on Aggression,” violence brings out aggression and the more you see violence the more use to it you are and the more you think it is normal. There were 40 males and 24 females involved in the study and they were asked to play 2 video games that contain violence, 2 that are competitive based, with 2 that are win/loses. The two goals of this study were to use all the same video games to see what type of impact they have on both violence and competition on aggression and to see the effects the video games have on losing on aggression in both competitive and low-competitive video games. This is important because everyone reacts differently to aggressiveness and competitiveness. The 4 video games would both impact  aggression within the participants but by how much or by how little?

            The first video game that was used was Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition, which is a high-violent game with an increase in blood and gore. The second video games used was Battle Team/Freezing Arena that was a low-violent video game. The results were that both brought out aggression, but in the first video game, it brought out more aggression especially when losing. The participants would get frustrated when they did not succeed and would constantly play until they won. In the second video game, the effects of aggression were not as high and the participants that were playing were not as effected with aggression. For the competitive part of the study, they used the same video games, but if the participants froze or killed someone in the game, they would get a point. After 10 minutes, they either “won” or “loss” the game. With the low-competitive games, they had the same tine limit, but the participants did not get a point when they killed or froze someone and did not know how much time they had. This showed that when there was a high-competitive video game, then that is when more aggression came out because of how competitive the game was and with low-competitive video games, there was not as much pressure so they were really just playing it play or for fun.

            In Video Games and Children: Violence in Video Games, there is a 17-year-old boy named Warren Leblanc who faces life a life sentence for repeatedly battering his 14-year-old friend with a hammer and stabbing him to death at a local park. Was playing violent video games the the cause of this? He was obsessed with playing a game called “Manhunt” where he would gain points when he violently killed people in the game. There are studies done that show this is not a coincidence because there have been multiple cases where kids have killed because of video games. The video game industry say that video games are educational and are good for children to help with their confidence, but in reality they are mainly all just violent and about killing, and when you kill you win. When you play these types of video games enough, it can re-wire your brain to make you think that in order to win at life, you have to kill and it is okay tho kill. Families and parents try to monitor their children and what video games they play, but no one really thinks about the effects and impacts they really have on their children. Because the majority of people that play video games are from the ages 7-14, their brains are still developing. When the developing brain sees these type of violent events, it will start to think this is the norm and it is okay. It is not just the type of video games they play, it is about the amount of time they play the games as well. Studies show that about 65% of males and 57% of females play video games at home for about 1-6 hours a day. Families need to start realizing how video games can effect the developing brain. They do not cut off the video games completely, but just monitor what their children are playing and how long they play the video games for.

            There is a motivating role of violence in video games. Video games have become a big problem in today’s culture because of the mature and violent content of them. In the study done in “The Motivating Role of Violence in Video Games,” there is no actual evidence saying that video games are the reason why teens are so violent. It is more of they are already violent but it brings out the violence that is already in them. There is also no difference between low and high violence conditions on enjoyment and preference for future play yet, there there were no age effects and no sex differences for enjoyment. All ages and and genders play video games and enjoy them, so there is no evidence that a certain gender or age are more violent than others.  

 

 Citations:

 

Andre Dowsett, Mervyn Jackson, The effect of violence and competition within video games on aggression, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 99, 2019, Pages 22-27, ISSN 0747-5632,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.05.002.

 

Przybyiski, Andrew K. “PSIKOKÜTANÖZ Hastal›Klarda ... - Yenisymposium.com.” The Motivating Role of Violence in Video Games, Immersyve Inc. , Feb. 2009, http://yenisymposium.com/Pdf/TR-YeniSempozyum-3506a486.pdf. 

Przybylski, A. K., Ryan, R. M., & Rigby, C. S. (2009). The Motivating Role of Violence in Video Games. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(2), 243–259.