Video games have become a hotly debated topic since their arrival in the 1970's with games like Pong and Pac-Man. Many people have launched campaigns against them, claiming they are responsible for promoting and glorifying violent behavior within the youth of America. These people claim that video games can be linked to increases in shootings and unhealthy brain patterns. So just how much damage do video games do towards behavior and/or thought processes?
Patrick Kierkegaard of the University of Essex, England, would argue that video games do little to no damage, at least relative to how they are portrayed by the media. After studying several research papers ranging from modern studies to studies in the 1980s that conclude that there is a correlation between video games and juvenile delinquency, as well as violent video games and regions of the human brain that are associated with aggression, Kierkegaard found that there is no obvious link between violent video games and bad behavior. As a matter of fact, he says, "violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s... while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use." He essentially finds research inconclusive and calls for a more detailed study of video games and their affects on behavior.
This inconclusiveness in the studies of video games irritates me on a personal level as I am a video game enthusiast. To blame someone's behavior on such a small portion of their life is irrational and does not take into account the countless variables around it that also influence a young person's behavior. Do I love video games? Absolutely! Do I consider myself more violent because of them? Not at all. Just because I enjoy playing out the stories of a dragon-slaying warrior, a thirteenth-century Arabic assassin, or an alien-slaying space engineer doesn't make me more violent and likely to go out and murder people. It's almost a non-issue with the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) we have established to set ratings on games as to what ages they are appropriate for. Are the games I play rated "M" for mature and intended for people over the age of 17? Yes. Did I play these games before I turned 17? I did not, my parents understood that those kinds of games were not meant for someone under 17, so I waited until I was of age and then purchased the games myself. Parents who let their young children play these kind of violent video games are the real problem here if there even is one, and that isn't even behavioral effects, it is just lazy parenting.
I chose this article because I find that there is a media bias on video games that does not allow for objective, clear studies or observations of the effects that these violent games have. Biased studies like this one, funded by the Center for Successful Parenting, an anti-video game group, are sadly some of the only studies being done on the effects of video games on our behavior. What I have found while playing video games is, like reading a book or watching a movie, it is another method of telling a story and an opportunity to escape to another world. Like everything, of course, it should be taken in moderation and regulated rather than just branded evil by parents who are unwilling to be responsible for their children's actions. I await the day that an impressive, peer-review, non-biased study emerges in the media that makes a compelling argument for or against video games affecting behavior. Until then, I will keep my controllers charged and my trigger-finger sharp.
The article this post is based off of can be found here.
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