Why do people think that video games cause shootings? Video games have been around since the early 1970s. These massive shootings have only been happening for multiple years now. First Person Shooter (FPS) games were one of the first video games created. Video games don’t cause violence; Instead, they just help people escape the real world and just have fun. It can be for competitiveness, entertainment, or they are just bored and have nothing better to do. People in their right mind don’t play games to plan to hurt people, it’s just a getaway for kids or adults.
People play video games to escape the real world. The people who play video games do this because of multiple reasons. The first reason why people play video games is for entertainment. They play for entertainment because they worked all week and all they want to do is sit back and play games for fun. Another reason why people play video games is they like competition. Some of my friends play video games for money and play competitively, and they make good money off of it. Another reason people play video games it takes them away from their bad or boring life and makes it fun. One of my friends is always on Xbox because he has nothing better to do all day because he only works a part-time job, so he doesn’t get many hours he also doesn’t enjoy going out. People don’t get on and play video games because they are mad and want to kill someone. People don’t get on just to shoot people because they want to do it in real life.
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There have been several studies that conclude that violent video games don’t lead to a violent person. Whitney DeCamp and Christopher J. Ferguson, both in the Department of Sociology at Western Michigan University, conducted research about kids who play violent video games and kids who are exposed to a violent family background, and they concluded that “A meta-analysis consolidating these effects indicated that increased time playing violent video games does not significantly affect the risk of violent behavior. Rather, it is the social and familial background that seems to play a larger role in determining the risk of violent behavior instead of video games” (13). In their research, they took all different ethnicities and asked them if they played violent video games, then they ask them if there is parental enforcement, home yelling, home violence, and have been hit by adults. They grouped all the kids who played video games and figured out if they ever hit someone, the children who have been exposed to home violence were the ones that hit people, more than the very little children who play violent video games and hit someone. There is not enough evidence to prove that violent video games are directly correlated to violence within the person.
The whole violent video games cause violence in children and young adults caused by moral panic. A moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among many people that some evil threatens the well-being of society; it usually spreads because of the media coverage that it gets, most people watch the news every day. According to Patrick M. Markey professor of psychology at Villanova University and Christopher J. Ferguson a Psychologist “However, it was not until the close of the 1990s after a series of school shootings perpetrated by white suburban kids that “blame the game” really took off” (102). This is a great example of a moral panic the investigators didn’t know why all these kids were shooting other people. So right away because children that played violent video games in the past are used as an example of why they shot all these innocent people because video games encourage rage and violence. In the same article, it states that “The number of published research articles examining video games increased nearly 300 percent in the wake of Columbine” (104). So the media started covering the topic more often. 300 percent more published research articles on violent video games caused this shooting and anger in this child. Just after one shooting, it’s just crazy because the child playing video games didn’t make him violent. It had to do with something at home and not gaming. If it wasn’t for the Columbine shooting, there would still be very few articles on violent video games being the cause of violent kids and young adults. This moral panic made people also think differently about the gaming industry and the government got involved. The government got involved because they started to do more regulations with the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to make Mature-Rated or M-Rated games harder to get by increasing the age to buy them to eighteen years old or have a parent/guardian with you that is above the age of eighteen so they can purchase it.
There is no direct correlation between video games causing violence. There are articles out there that say that video games do cause violence. When looking at this research I agree that you can get pissed off in a video game and be mad after you lost when you should have won. Then it can lead to very little “violence” like hitting your desk or throwing your controller. The people who do these researches say that video games lead to mass shootings when in reality all they say is it leads to “violence”. People look at violence differently I see violence being hitting, punching, or killing a person while others see violence as someone who throws their controller at a couch or screams at the game when they are mad, and people who think video games cause violence to conclude that as “violence”. As someone who plays violent video games at least three times a week, I don’t think I am violent, I care for people no matter what game I am playing even if I am mad at them I don’t want to hurt them
I personally play violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and Counter-Strike Global Offensive. I have never shot a gun in my life other than online on a game, I also never plan on shooting a gun because I don’t have a desire to shoot one even though I play violent video games. I also never got into a fight with another kid in school. All my friends that I play with play those exact video games and have also never been in a fight in school. We have been playing these games since 2009 which was in third and fourth grade for us. None of us have been the violent type. I do agree that video games can get people mad, most people don’t like losing games but it doesn’t make the person violent towards other people. Most people think that someone getting mad at a video game automatically makes them violent person because they scream or hit their controller on something. There have been multiple times I have gotten mad at a game and it's just a reaction to yell something just so you feel better. Just like in sports when someone misses a catch they scream something random because they’re mad they didn’t get the catch.
Not all video games are subject to violence. There are millions of games out there that contain no violence like Animal Crossing. This is a game where you are a small-town mayor. The objective of the game is simply to live the kind of life you want to live, which generally involves building up your town, making new friends, catching fish, and chasing bugs. Sports games like NHL and Madden where you create a player and play the sport as if you are in or the head coach in the NHL or NFL with your controller and friends. There are also games out there that contain content that is physically impossible to do what they are doing in the game and recreate it. All games come with warning labels saying not to attempt anything illustrated inside of these games. Grand Theft Auto might look like the real world but there are many warnings before launching the game not to attempt anything you see in these games. So it is not like the companies are going out there saying go buy an assault rifle and go somewhere with a lot of people and shoot them the video game companies are very clearly telling you not to try this stuff you see in the game.
Why do people think that video games cause shootings? People look at violence in a different way than other people do. When talking about video games and violence there are two ways to look at it either they cause violence or don’t cause violence. The answer is video games don’t cause violence. Video games just help people escape the real world and just have fun they do it for entertainment and some people do it for competitiveness and to make money. No one plays video games as a simulation of the real world and shoots people on there and then repeats in the actual world.
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