Can Video Games Make You Violent?

    

      It is no secret that video games have evolved into really violent and aggressively graphic games recently. The debate about wether parents should let their kids play certain video games has gone on forever, but now there is a new debate. The debate about wether or not violent video games can influence violent behavior on others. This originally started a few years ago when school shootings became more common. So, the question stands: "can we blame video games for violent behavior in children?" 

Blaming Video Games

       The number of school shootings that have been taking place are rapidly increasing in our society for various reasons. According to NBCNews.com, some of the school shootings that have happened in the past were blamed on video games. This includes the Munich Shooting in 2016 which was inevitably blamed on the fact that the shooter played violent video games. Also, in 2013 we went through the Sandy Hook shooting and the shooter was actually questioned about his video game interests, and it was later discovered that his favorite video game was "Dance Dance Revolution." Crazy right? Now, more recently there was another school shooting in Douglas High School in Florida. President Donald Trump responded to this event with a speech where he mentioned that young people have been negatively influenced by the violent video games they play. Trump said that the level of violence in video games is actually “shaping young people’s thoughts” and continued by inviting representatives of the video game industry to meet with him to speak on what can be done about gun violence. The biggest issue with this is that there is a lot of evidence to prove that the correlation between the two is actually minimal to none. A direct quote from NBCNews.com's article reads, "Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively. Any demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media." Many would argue that there are so many more obvious causes to the problem our country has been facing, two of them being gun control laws and mental illness awareness, blaming video games is almost like concealing the real problem. 

Real v.s Fake 

        An average human being is able to determine real from fake easily, as well as being able to tell right from wrong. Because of this fact, it is hard to blame video games like Call of Duty which involve gun violence. We as human beings know that the video games are fake, and we are highly aware of reality and the consequences that we would have to face in real life. Now, some may argue that some human beings cannot tell the difference between the two. This is a great argument, however, one who cannot tell the difference should be taken to a specialist to determine if they have any form of mental illness. According to Latimes.com, "at least 59% of the 185 public mass shootings that took place in the United States from 1900 through 2017 were carried out by people who had either been diagnosed with a mental disorder or demonstrated signs of serious mental illness prior to the attack." This quote is direct proof that these acts of violence are deeper than any video game out there, the problem is bigger! 

Final Thoughts

         More than 90% of Americans play video games, and it is highly likely that most of them have encountered or played violent games. Yet it is not true that 90% of Americans are school shooters, therefore the correlation is flawed. To blame video games for the mass killings we have experienced as a country is almost a clear view at how flawed our system is, hiding from the real problems that stand right in front of us. It is definitely unfair to the video game world to basically put the lives that were lost in their hands, it isn't justified. 

Links: 
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-duwe-rocque-mass-shootings-mental-illness-20180223-story.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/here-s-what-we-know-about-links-between-video-games-n852776