Notes For My Research

(Video Game)

A further issue that can occur through gaming is online harassment or bullying behaviors. A specific example of harassing behavior occurring within a game can be found in Xbox Live services. With its online chat and party system, this leaves the service open to unwanted harassment, trolling, or bullying to occur between players. To address these concerns, Microsoft made improvements with reputation levels for a player's Xbox Live account. The system is set to warn, then punish bad behavior in hopes of better regulating Xbox Live accounts.

(Albanese)

A task force report released in August 2015 by the American Psychological Association (APA) concluded there's a definite link to increased aggression in children who play violent video games.

(Bingham)

But those who spend more than three hours a day displayed higher levels of aggression and were less academically engaged.

(Roberts)

Children learn how to use weapons and how to fight in the most crude, violent ways imaginable

(Roberts)

Children who play violent video games stimulate their brains with violence and thus seek to recreate that stimulation

(The Facts)

Despite the dramatic reduction in violent video games being produced and sold in the USA, the number of high school shootings has continued to increase. From the twelfth of December 1012, the date of the Sandy Hook shooting, to today, there have been over 185 shootings on school campuses in the USA. As of June the first 2016, that's about once every week.

(Keim)

Even the idea that violence is contagious is still, however, a hypothesis, and the cognitive influence of video games a matter of plausible speculation rather than demonstrated fact.

(The Facts)

Ferguson argues that moral panic surrounding video games has occurred because of a cycle of news media excitement and funding-precedent being given to studies that are more likely to show a link between violent crime and violent video games. He claims that most studies fail to take into account other variables such as family violence or genetics.

(The Facts)

Following the shootings in Columbine High School, Entertainment Software Association performed a 10-year study on violent video games effects, and if these video games can make kids violent. In 1996, just under two million violent crimes took place in the United States with video game sales sitting at around $2.5 billion. By 2007, video game sales increased to over $9.5 billion, yet violent crimes decreased to just over 1.5 million.

(Albanese)

However, the task force members said it's uncertain whether that aggression correlates with criminal violence or juvenile delinquency.

(Sifferlin)

In a report published Aug. 13, an APA task force reviewed more than 100 studies on violent video game use published between 2005 and 2013. They concluded that playing video games can increase aggressive behavior and thoughts, while lessening empathy and sensitivity toward aggression.

(Toppo)

On the morning of August 12, 2013, nearly eight months after 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and killed 26 people, Michael Mudry, an investigator with the Connecticut State Police, drove to nearby Danbury to try to solve a little mystery. Police had found a Garmin GPS unit in Lanza's house, and its records showed that the gunman had driven to the same spot nine times in April, May and June 2012, arriving around midnight each time and staying for hours

(Bingham)

Overall those who played for less than an hour a day were less likely to have problems such as aggression than those who did not play at all.

(ProCon)

Playing violent video games causes more aggression, bullying, and fighting.

(Video Game)

Positive effects of video games

(ProCon)

Sales of violent video games have significantly increased while violent juvenile crime rates have significantly decreased.

(Violence and Video)

Short-term effects were easily identified in the GAM; the most prominent being that violent games change the way gamers interpret and respond to aggressive acts. Even those who aren't predisposed to aggression respond with increased hostility after playing a violent video game. The game becomes what's called a "situational variable" which changes the perception of and reaction to aggressive behavior.

(ProCon)

Studies have shown that violent video games can have a positive effect on kindness, civic engagement, and "prosocial" behaviors.

(Toppo)

The GPS readout took Mudry to the vast parking lot of a suburban shopping center, about 14 miles west of Lanza's home. Workers at a movie theater there immediately recognized Lanza from a photograph. He was at the theater constantly, they told Mudry, but never to see movies. He came to the lobby to play an arcade game, the same one, over and over again, sometimes for eight to 10 hours a night. Witnesses said he would whip himself into a frenzy, and on occasion the theater manager had to unplug the game to get him to leave.

(ProCon)

The US military uses violent video games to train soldiers to kill.

(ProCon)

The competitive nature of a video game is what arouses aggression, not the level of violent content.

(Kleinman)

The playing of violent video games is often cited as a factor in motivating shockingly violent youth crimes such as high school shootings in the US. One of the students who carried out the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 used a gun he called "Arlene" - allegedly after a character in a novel inspired by the computer game Doom.

(Scutti)

The psychological group reports that more than 90% of children in the United States play video games. Among kids between the ages of 12 and 17, the number rises to 97%

(Dotinga)

The researchers also said they discovered that kids who played video games for less than an hour a day were more likely to be less aggressive and rated as better-behaved by their teachers. And even if spending a lot of time playing video games every day may alter the way kids act in everyday life, "all observed behaviors were very small in magnitude, suggesting only a minor relationship at best and that games do not have as large an impact as some parents and practitioners worry," said study author Andrew Przybylski. He is an experimental psychologist at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University.

(APA Review)

The task force conducted a comprehensive review of the research literature published between 2005 and 2013 focused on violent video game use. This included four meta-analyses that reviewed more than 150 research reports published before 2009. Task force members then conducted both a systematic evidence review and a quantitative review of the literature published between 2009 and 2013. (A systematic evidence review synthesizes all empirical evidence that meets pre-specified criteria to answer specific research questions — a standard approach to summarizing large bodies of research to explore a field of research.) This resulted in 170 articles, 31 of which met all of the most stringent screening criteria.

(ProCon)

There is broad consensus among medical associations, pediatricians, parents, and researchers that violent video games increase aggressive behavior

(APA Review)

These include a general failure to look for any differences in outcomes between boys and girls who play violent video games; a dearth of studies that have examined the effects of violent video game play on children younger than 10; and a lack of research that has examined the games' effects over the course of children's development.

(Resolution on Violent)

Video game use has become pervasive in the American child's life: More than 90% of U.S. children play some kind of video games; when considering only adolescents ages 12 - 17, that figure rises to 97% (Lenhart et.al, 2008; NPD Group, 2011;). Although high levels of video game use are often popularly associated with adolescence, children younger than age 8 who play video games spend a daily average of 69 minutes on handheld console games, 57 minutes on computer games, and 45 minutes on mobile games, including tablets (Rideout, 2013). Considering the vast number of children and youth who use video games and that more than 85% of video games on the market contain some form of violence, the public has understandably been concerned about the effects that using violent video games may have on individuals, especially children and adolescents.

(Roberts)

Video games can teach young boys to grow up disrespecting women and treating them as sexual objects

(Roberts)

Violent games can create an addict out of youngsters, leaving them chasing that "high" associated with committing violence

(ProCon)

Violent video game players know the difference between virtual violence in the context of a game and appropriate behavior in the real world.

(ProCon)

Violent video games allow players to release their stress and anger (catharsis) in the game, leading to less real world aggression.

(ProCon)

Violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence.

(ProCon)

Violent video games may decrease crime because people are busy playing the games instead of committing violent acts.

(The Facts)

While the sale of Mature-rated video games currently sits at 15.5 per cent, the actual number of Mature-rated video games produced has been in decline. This is true for Teen-rated games as well. In 2004, Teen rated video games made up 33 per cent of all games manufactured and produced. Mature-rated video games made up 12 per cent of all titles produced. By 2007 however, Teen-rated video games made up only 20 per cent of all games made and Mature-rated games made up only six per cent. This is a substantial drop off.