Violent Video Games and Their Effects on People
The world has grown smaller with technology; bringing people closer no matter how far they physically are. At the same time, people have become more mature for the ages as compared to the past. As the nature and lifestyle of people have changed, the nature of utilities they use has also transformed. The foods have become more exotic, travelling has become more of fun than learning and gaming has become violent more than entertainment.
Video games were first invented in the 1990s with a view to develop the ultimate gaming experiences of individuals. It brought about a kind of revolution in the gaming industry. The evolution of video games was not a sudden phenomenon. Though there were many electronic games that were first introduced which changed the imaginations across the nation and won over almost all hearts, the true and primary video game is said to have been developed in 1967 (Atteberry, Jonathan). This video game used technology, which transformed electronic signals into pictures on a screen with the use of a system called the raster pattern. The major developments of video game is attributed to Baer, who, in an attempt to publicize the television and make it stand better than competitions, proposed construction of electronic games into the television set. The concept was first disapproved by the manager and later on went on to be one of the greatest inventions of gaming industry.
The evolution of video games could have said to bring positive results for the first few years of their introduction. Parents were relieved that their children now were into the homes, enjoying video games and not roaming in the streets with risks of a fight or accident. The video games that followed for a few years restored this assurance as the games were stimulated with learning and
real life scenarios developed in the form of video games. The whole scenario changed with the introduction of violence into the video gaming business (Oxfordscholarship.com).
Thesis: Violent video games are developing violent nature in the peoples, and it is making the dream of peaceful society to a mere dream.
I strongly support the fact that violent video games must be controlled as it affects the children mind. As I can see in the market that the nature of video games has changed over period. Nowadays, almost all video games have changed their classical story based mode to wars, fights and violence. For me, these types of violent video games are not good. These types of games must be avoided, and the children must be kept away from these types of games. I strongly reject the violent video games in my playing list as these types of games changes the attitudes of children. It makes the children oriented towards violence and ruins the society.
Whether the violent video games have impact on the people has been a matter of debate, and many people have their own views regarding this matter. But, so far I understand and experience, these games are changing the way the children are supposed to behave. The children have changed from calm and peace-loving behavior to violent children who so anger and rage in every things they do. My argument can be supported by the detailed study this issue, and this study will also show the effect of violent video games clearly. After 14 years of video games development, a light gun arcade game called Chiller was introduced. This game introduced the concept of virtual killings and killing was must to advance to next level. So, peoples used to do everything they can to kill peoples in the games. Because of extensive killing in the game, peoples developed a sub-conscious habit of displaying violence in their real life as well. When they had difficult in achieving something they wanted, they used to be violent to get that which was similar to killing peoples in game at any cost to move to next level. I believe that what the people does or plays for most of the time remains in their brain, and it is displayed in their real life in a subconscious mode. This game made a player a serial killer killing any amount of people, spilling blood all over, breaking signals and murdering innocents on street to make way for moving ahead in the game. Then how can we expect that these games would not make people violent in there real life? It is a human nature that if someone spends most of his/her time by doing a particular thing, then this become habits of that person. Similar is the situation with video games. When people plays violence games days and nights, then violence becomes his habit, and this habit is displayed in real life.
It was exactly in the 1990s that the extremity of violent video games crossed higher limits. Researchers all around the world extensively studied the harmful effects of such games. In the 1980s, there were numerous researches on what harmful effects these games can have on people of different age groups and diversities (N4g.com). One big example of video games impact was the incidences of school shootings in the 1990s, which reflected the level of influences that these video games had on teenager brains. Until then, people did not took the effects of such video games seriously. Their ignorance brought the incidence of school shooting. This is the strong reflection of the level of impact that these games can have in our life. We can neither ignore this fact nor escape from its result. So, I loudly say that these games ought to be banned, and the concerned authorities need to be alerted to take prompt action against these games. The incidence of school firing attracted the attention of general people on what the effects of violence in gaming experiences can be even if it exists only in the virtual world. This incidence became a trigger for many peoples to raise voice against such games. Despite efforts from then on to stop the growing influence of violence in video games, the results seem to be working in the opposite direction. Over the years, the use of violent game has rather increased in several ways.
Several studies have shown the effects of video games in two dimensions viz. gender and age. The violent games have impact on both gender group and age group. This shows how critical situation the game is nurturing. These types of violent game has marked its impact in people of different gender irrespective of their age or occupation. From the researches, it has been proved that the video games promote and cultivate violence and aggression in the people, irrespective of age or gender, who play these games. To support my claim, I have found the results of researches conducted by Anderson & Bushman in 2001, and Carnagey & Anderson in 2005. These researches has found that video games escalate the aggression quotient. Sakomoto, Ihori, & Yukawa, 2008, discovered that male aggression is increased by violent video games however there is no effect on females (Radford.edu). This strengthens my argument that video games cultures violence in human being irrespective of their gender.
I personally believe that the effects of video games on males are higher than the same effects on females. It is also true particularly because, females seldom play video games, but then the gap is narrowing down rapidly. Having said so, the gap is narrowing in developed nations, but in most other countries where females are more concentrated into households than computer and gadgets, the effect of boys is higher as compared to girls. The other reason I believe is that most of the characters in the game are males, so they connect with the characters more. The characters that result in the violence are males more often, who are then surrounded with nude females. So, male characters are the one who are associated with violence and female characters are associated with nudity and fashion. The other reason may be that women are taught to be subtle and polite and though they may be aggressive intentions inside, they are not explicitly allowed to showcase them in front of everyone. Males, on the other hand are supposed to be aggressive and so aggression comes as a natural behavior in their case. Thus, the effects are higher on males as they can connect better to the characters in the virtual world.
The trend is however changing. With the gaming phenomenon going global, and the education of males and females growing simultaneously in most parts of the world, even women are affected by the violence part depicted in the games. Women too are growing as the center of powers in the current age and with games providing choices to choose for genders and other personal attributes, the effect is sure to multiply in the days to come.
Having talked much about gender based impact; we cannot close our eyes without discussing the impact on the peoples of different ages. I will elaborate the effect of violent games by categorizing the age into 3 categories: children, teenagers and adults.
The children mind is like raw clay that can be shaped into any form, which sticks to their behavior for life. With violent video games, children are developing thought patterns that remain with them for a long period, influencing their behavior as they mature. This learning is no different from any other learning that children learn in the form of math, science or any other subject. According to the Professor of Psychology, Douglas Gentile, “If you practice over and over, you have that knowledge in your head. The fact that you haven’t played the piano in years doesn’t mean you can’t still sit down and play something,” Gentile said. “It’s the same with violent games – you practice being vigilant for enemies, practice thinking that it’s acceptable to respond aggressively to provocation, and practice becoming desensitized to the consequences of violence”(Drphil.com).
The researches carried out in this line suggest that the level of aggression in children thinking is increased as their exposure to video games is also increased. The implication of this is that when they are faced in real life with situations that trigger the aggressive side of their behavior, they tend to behave in the same way as that of the video game. Craig Anderson, another professor of psychology states that, “They also reward players for being alert to hostile intentions and for using aggressive behavior to solve conflicts. Practicing such aggressive thinking in these games improves the ability of the players to think aggressively. In turn, this habitual aggressive thinking increases their aggressiveness in real life” (Drphil.com).
But, it is also argued that children do develop some good habits when they have the practice of playing video games. A huge number of children play video games, and almost all of them contain certain extent of violent content, but it does not imply that all children learn bad habits or develop bad perceptions just on the basis of virtual experience. Regardless of culture, sometimes even violent games give reality check to children, in terms of the behavior that will lead to murder of innocent people and thus in real life, these children might actually carry out actions against this kind of behavior. The present online gaming systems provide an opportunity of socialization, learning various languages and understanding strategic moves that are not possible learning in just plain text books or theories.
The effect of violent games on teenagers can be understood in terms of four different aspects, which is proven by many researches and studies. The first effect is that the Exposure of teenagers to violence in video games is going to give them a tough time in distinguishing what is right and what is wrong when it comes to real life scenarios. When teens are faced with similar situation of conflict in real life, they may choose to go with the way of gaming and take decisions including violence like their characters in most of the video games. Gaming also reduces the amount of contact they have with the real world.
The second consequence is that violent video games hamper the emotional development of teenagers, refraining them from sympathy and empathy feelings. They have not yet socialized with the world and they may feel that human beings are actually objects that can be shot out of way if they act as a hindrance in the achievement of their mission. Another issue is related to the trust level of these teenagers on real life characters that they face in the real world. The world of gaming is mostly dominated by deceptions, back stabbings but the same may not apply to the real world. Whereas, teenagers many still believe that there are no friends and all enemies in the real world and if they do, they are deprived of real life relationships and bondages.
According to the researcher of a study carried out in Canada, Mirjana Bajovic, “The present results indicate that some adolescents in the violent video game playing group, who spent three or more hours a day playing violent video games, while assumingly detached from the outside world, are deprived of such opportunities. Spending too much time within the virtual world of violence may prevent [gamers] from getting involved in different positive social experiences in real life, and in developing a positive sense of what is right and wrong.”
Talking about the effects of video games on adults, it may be studied in two folds: the first is the adults who themselves play video games and the other are the people who have teenagers or adults around them who play these video games. Many researches carried out on young men and women who are addicted to video games suggest that there are continued changes in the brain region, which is connected with cognitive function. Changes were also found in parts of brain where emotional control was situated. These results are based on study that was done after a sample of young men was taken and they were allowed to play video games for a week or so (Communications.medicine.iu.edu).
“For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home,” said Yang Wang, M.D., assistant research professor in the IU Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. “The affected brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior” (Mail Online).
The debate on whether video games affect the individual’s abilities has even reached the Supreme Court in 2010. However, when it comes to adults, there is only limited evidence, which suggests that there are prolonged unfavorable neurological effects on people (Gentile, Douglas, Craig & Anderson).
Besides these social consequences, when we see the medical world evidences, we find that there are a number of disorientations that occur as a result of prolonged exposure to violent video games. Researchers have found phenomenon known as the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The changes associated with cognitive function give way for the influences of such games on the brain. But, the interesting fact is that these effects were reduced and rather eventually subdued after a period of about two weeks.
The immediate results however suggested that a week of violent game play caused the video game group members to be less active in their left inferior frontal lobe. This resulted less active behavior in the occurrence of emotional tasks. There was also less activation observed in the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain and it was associated with the mathematical counting task. But, second week without the game play and the changes in these executive regions of the brain were automatically diminished and eliminated.
If we talk of only video games, which do not contain high level of violence or no violence at all, they may show more positive implications than negative. The kids, teenagers or adults not only learn from video games but they learn form a wide range of knowledge sources. And while we may argue that violent games develop their aggressive behavior, it should also be noted that there may be other neutralizing sources existing in the other sources of media that children and teenagers today are exposed to (PhD, Rick).
The socialization opportunities that online gaming provides, is a good platform for students and teenagers to build networks. Most of the video games also act as a stimulated virtual environment of what students connect in class and they can actually connect the theory with the practical in these artificial environments (PhD, Marilyn). However, the violence element takes away all the positivity that video games might bring to the world. The findings of all the discussion is subject to debate that not all video games with violence elements can be blamed of being a negative catalyst.
So, to conclude this argument, we see that the negative impact of violent game outweighs the positive side. These violent video games are destroying the dream of peaceful society into cracks by making our children and teenagers more attracted towards violent activities. When a child need to play a game under the parental guidance just because it contains violent activities, then it is no worth playing. These games are turning the tender brain of children to violent and aggressive thereby making most of the children aggressive. Neither a girl or a boy, child or a youth are free from the negative impact of violent game, so to reduce the level of violence from the society we must first make our children and teenagers free from violence. This can be done largely by banning the violent games and teaching them the lesson of non-violence and love. So, these games of violent nature must be banned and developers must be punished.
Works Cited
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