Video Games and Violence
Why am I interested in this topic?
Back in the day…
More like this age… 
I had to do this face!
So my brother let me watch him play this
game…
At the time where these were the S***!
And this never existed..
It was old school..
And since then I got attached to video
games, so my topic is to show that video
games are not correlated to violence.
In the past decade we had a lot of violent
actions happening (shootings in schools…)
and every body started to point fingers to
video games for the blame.
But they forgot the main cause that makes
all that happens!
So I decided to do some research about the
matter using six different articles done
between 2002 and 2013. I decided to use
analytic and descriptive methods, to show
that other people like Dr. Ferguson chased
the main reasons to violence.
Sources
Ferguson, Christopher J. "Video Games and Youth Violence: A Prospective Analysis in
Adolescents." - Springer. N.p., 14 Dec. 2010. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Ferguson, Christopher J., and Cheryl K. Olson. "Video Game Violence Use Among." "Vulnerable"
Populations: The Impact of Violent Games on Delinquency and Bullying Among Children with Clinically
Elevated Depression or Attention Deficit Symptoms. N.p., 21 Aug. 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Ferguson, Christopher J., Claudia San Miguel, Adolfo Garza, and Jessica M. Jerabeck. "A
Longitudinal Test of Video Game Violence Influences on Dating and Aggression: A 3-year
Longitudinal Study of Adolescents." Science Direct. N.p., 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Kirsh, Steve J. "The Effects of Violent Video Games on Adolescents: The Overlooked Influence of
Development." N.p., 28 Mar. 2002. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Primack, Brian A., Mary V. Carroll, Megan McNamara, Mary Lou Klem, Brandy King, Michael
Rich, Chun W. Chan, and Smita Nayak. "Role of Video Games in Improving Health-Related
Outcomes: A Systematic Review." Science Direct. N.p., 15 May 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Przybylski, Andrew K., Richard M. Ryan, and C. Scott Rigby. "The Motivating Role of Violence in
Video Games." Sage Journals. N.p., Feb. 2009. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson in his study “Video Games and Youth Violence:
A Prospective Analysis in Adolescents” worked with a sample of 302 (52.3%
female) mostly Hispanic youth, and conducted an investigation focusing on
family environment, family violence, and depressive symptoms. He found that
the current levels of depressive symptoms are a strong predictor of aggression
and violence, and that neither video games exposure nor play was prospective
predictors of aggression or violent among these youth. Dr. Ferguson also
teamed up with Cheryl K. Olson in their study “Video Game Violence Use
Among ‘Vulnerable’ Populations: The Impact of Violent Games on
Delinquency and Bullying Among Children with Clinically Elevated
Depression or Attention Deficit Symptoms” where they explored the sum of
337 children (62% female, mixed ethnicity, mean age = 12.93) with elevated
attention deficit or depressive symptoms. They conducted an investigation
concentrating on trait aggression, parental involvement and exposure to video
game violence, and found out that there is no evidence for increased bullying
or delinquent behaviors among these youth who played the violent video
games.
For the third time too Dr. Ferguson teamed up with a larger group this time,
which is consisted of Claudia San Miguel, Adolfo Garza, and Jessica M.
Jerabeck on a large study named “A longitudinal test of video game violence
influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study for
adolescents.” This study was about 165 mainly Hispanic youth that were
interviewed on 3 years time, there were an initial interview, 1 year and 3 year
interval interviews. They found that exposure to video game violence is not
related to any negative outcome, and that depression, antisocial personality
traits, exposure to family violence and peer influences were the main
predictors of the aggressive outcomes. As for Andrew K.Przybylski, Richard
M. Ryan and C. Scott Rigby, they were trying to discover a different side of
the relation between violence and violent video games. In their article “The
Motivating Role of Violence in Video Games”, they worked on six studies,
two survey based and four experimental, to investigate the role of violence of
video games in motivating people to play them. Their result was that the
violent content in the video games have a very low effect on the player
motivation to play them, while enjoyment, value and desire for future play
were the main motivation for the players to play the violent video games.
Dr. Brian A. Primack joined by Mary V. Carroll, Megan McNamara,
Mary Lou Klem, Brandy King, Michael Rich, Chun W. Chan and Smita
Nayak in the article “Role of Video Games in Improving Health-Related
Outcomes: A Systematic Review”, worked on literature searches using 1452
articles from six databases (the Center on Media and Child Health Database
of Research, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE and the Cochrane
Central Register of Controlled Trials), to investigate the relation between
video games and the improvement of health outcomes. They found out that
there is a potential promise that video games do improve health outcomes,
especially in psychological and physical therapy. On the other hand, Steven J.
Kirsh said in his review article “The effects of violent video games on
adolescents: The overlooked influence of development” that “Anderson and
Bushman [Annu. Rev. Psychol. 53 (2002) 27.] Have posited a General
Aggression Model (GAM) to explain the mechanism behind the link between
violent video games and aggressive behavior”. His main goal of his review
was “to integrate the GAM with developmental changes that occur across
adolescence” as he mentioned. But his result was that the influence of video
games as a function of developmental changes across adolescence hasn’t been
addressed yet.
So from what I found out, video games is
definitely not correlated with violence, the
real problem is the psychological state of
the people that create violence. And in my
opinion, family relations and social
relations are essential in creating a bad
psychological response.
In other words, give a psycho a joystick and
tell him to play a violent video game to
study if it will cause violence is just like
turning the fire off with gasoline!
Thank You!