Another factor that relates to stress is aggression. Young adults generally do not know how to properly manage stress and instead turn to aggression as a solution. By playing violent video games, these people can channel their stress into a virtual world where their aggression won’t hurt anyone in real life. Some factors that influence younger children to play video games include boredom, curiosity, and peer pressure. Many elementary school and middle school students aren’t assigned that much homework and therefore have hours of free time everyday after school. Many of these children play video games to pass the time away between doing homework and going to sleep. Other children who watch their friends play these types of games become curious and want to try the game out for themselves. This is also similar to peer pressure. Anyone who plays these types of video games will no doubt try to influence all their friends to play the same game too.
The next step after the initial attraction is an addiction to video games. Video game addiction is just like any other addiction in life. If someone enjoys playing video games, then he or she will continue playing more and more until it becomes an addiction. Once this becomes an addiction, the game player is left with less time to do other
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important activities such as going to class, doing homework, spending time with friends, exercising, and even sleeping. This generally has a negative effect on people.
This video game addiction is not only bad for the person addicted, but also for the people who know this person in real life. Anti-social behavior is linked to the addiction because as a person becomes more indulged in his computer screen, he will forget to spend time with real people instead of “internet video game buddies.” This will cause him to begin distancing himself away from real-life friends. At the same time, he will also start becoming closer to his “internet friends.” This is unhealthy because he will probably never meet these people in real life and in the end it will just be a big waste of time. Too much video game playing also results in time taken away from academic activities such as homework or studying. This can have a negative impact on a person’s academic standing. It is not uncommon for an ‘A’ student to become so involved in video games that his grades drop to a ‘B’ or ‘C’ level. The effects of this can be devastating if one becomes addicted at a young age. Imagine a student who made “straight A’s” throughout elementary and middle school. In high school, this student becomes involved in computer games and his grades drop significantly. He will not be able to attend a good college and companies won’t view him as a good working prospect. This person won’t receive the type of job he would otherwise have received if he had concentrated on school instead of video games. Although this example may seem a bit far-fetched, it really isn’t that far from the truth. It has to be stressed that schoolwork should come before video games.
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Another bi-product of stress is aggression. These two always come hand-in-hand because they are both causes and effects of each other. Most people—especially men—don’t know how to deal with stress without behaving more aggressively than normal. It is not uncommon to slam a fist against a wall or yell at an innocent near-by person while feeling stressed out. Not only do stress and aggression lead to an attraction to video games, but violence in video games also leads to aggression. It is a vicious cycle that gets worse and worse as the person spends more time on the computer. Aggression comes in many forms including short temper, cursing, and fighting.
A report published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in April 2000 positively links video games and violence. Based on two studies by researchers Craig A. Anderson and Karen E. Dill, the article claims that violent video games increase aggressive tendencies in the short term and can have long-lasting effects. "Even brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior," said Anderson and Dill.
The journal article outlines two psychology studies that support the theory of a link between playing violent video games and aggressive behavior. The first, involving 227 college students, measured the students' aggressive tendencies and linked those tendencies to the student's video-game playing habits. "We found that students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior," said Anderson. "We also found that amount of time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades."
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In the second study, 210 college students played either a violent video game (Wolfenstein 3D™) or a non-violent video game (Myst™). Afterward, the students who played Wolfenstein 3D™ were asked to join one team and the students playing Myst™ were asked to join another team. Every student was given a blow-horn and was told to punish the opposing team with noise blasts from the blow-horn. The study found that students who played the violent game tended to use longer bursts of noise. The second study showed the causality between violent video games and aggression. Although this was a closed experiment with no outside variables, these studies can be related to the recent school shootings that have happened in the past couple years.
A year ago, 13 people were killed and 23 were wounded when two students at Columbine High School went on a killing spree that ended only when they turned their guns on themselves. Because of the killers' penchant for playing the first-person shooting game "Doom," some believe violent video games should be blamed, at least in part, for the violence.
All of this information about video game violence may sound bad, but it can be stopped or at least be less extreme than it is now. Steps can be taken to help limit the effects of video game violence. For children, parental awareness can go a long way since they are the ones who are usually buying these violent games for their children. Parents can also limit their child’s playing time and suggest reading a book or playing a sport instead. As for the older group of game players, will power is the key to curing the addiction. Many gamers play for hours at a time and up to 12 hours per day (from personal experience). The best way to stop this is to set an alarm or tell a friend to call
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you at a certain time so you can take a break from playing. Two hours at a time should be plenty, and it will go a long way in helping to cure the addiction.
“At a press conference marking the third annual video game report card, Lieberman said there is some good news. The National Institute on Media and the Family found, in their survey of games on the market, that virtually every new game contains a rating that parents can refer to when picking out games for their children, and that ‘the lion's share of new games coming on the market contain little if any violence.’” (Curley) Although this may sound like encouraging news, it is really just the first step in enforcing these video game ratings. These ratings are merely a suggestion of what the game industry thinks is the target age of these games. The owners of computer stores are not obliged to ask the game buyers to show an identification card because it is not illegal for a fourteen year old teenager to buy a game rated MA 17+ for mature audiences only. On the other hand, this same fourteen year old can’t walk into a movie theatre and buy a ticket for a rated R movie. The gaming industry has to start enforcing these ratings just as movie theatres enforce the movie-rating system.
All of the past research studies on video game violence have turned up inconclusive results. Although the studies link video game violence and aggression, it is possible that aggressive people who get into more trouble prefer violent video games. Additional studies will need to be completed before we can claim that there is a demonstrated cause effect relationship between video game violence and real life aggression. However, the recent research developments show that the concern about the
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impact of violent video games is justified. It should act as a spur for both more research and for greater vigilance over the video and computer game diet of children.
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Works Consulted
Anderson, Craig A. and Dill, Karen E. “Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. April 2000: v.78 n.4: 772.
Ballard, Mary E. and Lineberger, Robert. “Video game violence and confederate
gender: Effects on reward and punishment given by college males.” Sex Roles. Oct. 1999. V.41 n.7-8: 541-58
Curley, Anne. “Senator Decries Violent Video Games.” CNN Allpolitics. 25 Nov. 1995.
<http://europe.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/11/25/email/videos>
Gross, Alan M., et al. “Cognitive Temp, Violent Video Games, and Aggressive Behavior in Young Boys.” Journal of Family Violence. Sep. 1995: v.10 n.3: 337-50.
1998 Video and Computer Game Report Card. David A. Walsh, Ph.D. National Institute on Media and the Family.
< http://www.mediaandthefamily.org/1998vgrc2.html>
Why Do Kids Kill?. Jon Katz, First Amendment Center Scholar. 23 April 1999.
<http://www.freedomforum.org/technology/1999/4/23katz.asp>
Works Cited
Anderson, Craig A. and Dill, Karen E. “Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. April 2000: v.78 n.4: 772.
Curley, Anne. “Senator Decries Violent Video Games.” CNN Allpolitics. 25 Nov. 1995.
<http://europe.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/11/25/email/videos>