Video game violence: Op-Ed
The shootings at Columbine high school were blamed on many things. Among drugs, alcohol and mental disorders was the first person shooter video game called Doom. Many people blamed the video game because there was not a lot of drugs or alcohol that showed up on the tests. Bill Manville on NY daily news said “"Doesn’t that sound like they were trying to rack up a record score in some video arcade?" This isn’t a very realistic idea, there is no way that a violent video game can make you think that on your own.
Many studies
say that when testing violent video games on kids, they test whether the games made
kids more violent. Almost all of the studies concluded that the kids who played
violent video games became more aggressive after playing them. Many people who
play violent video games become more aggressive, but they don’t make you act on
these emotions.
The reality
is that millions of people play violent video games, and there are not millions
of school shootings or violent crimes every year, so it cannot be affecting
people so much that they want to act on their emotions. Recently, video games
have become more popular. As an
article on PBS says, “According
to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United
States is at a 30-year low." This combined with the fact that many of the
other studies only said that the people playing violent video games only became
more aggressive supports the idea that it makes people more aggressive, but
they don’t act.
Violent video games do make people more aggressive, but they don’t act
on these emotions. If the violent video games were having such an impact so
that they made the kids to things like the columbine shootings, then there
would be a lot more juvenile violent crimes. The study was only for the United
States, but these statistics could be different for other parts of the world. A
lot of these studies are not 100% accurate because they don’t account for
everything in the game players life. This is almost impossible to do, so the
data will never be completely correct for these kinds of studies.
The shootings at Columbine or any other school shootings are not
majorly caused by the kids playing video games. Many people try to blame video games
because they are something that many people can easily put the blame on, even
though according to PBS 83% of video games that kids shouldn’t be playing are
bought by their parents. Less of the blame should be put on video games, and
more on other factors like illegal substances, or mental problems.
Overall many people find that violent video games are something easy
to blame problems on. In fact the video games do make the players more
aggressive, but not as violent. Although violent video games do hold some blame
in violence today, there are many other factors such as drugs, alcohol, or
mental problems that contribute to this violence more than violent video games.