Video Game Violence

VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE

Ricardo Alarcon

DeVry University

Professor Adam

October, 13 2013

Video Game Violence

In April of 1999 in the town of Columbine in Colorado two high school students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting spree at Columbine High school. It was one of the most horrific and traumatic events to happen at the time. For approximately an hour the two perpetrators wreaked havoc on students, faculty, and local law enforcement. After the ordeal had ended twelve students and one teacher had died, and the two shooters had committed suicide (Lamb, 2008).. The violent acts committed by these two was captured on film by the school security system, later reviewed by law enforcement and made available to multiple news media. The largest contributors to the claim that video games cause violent behavior are the news media. They have pushed for the removal and banning of overly violent games. The statistic in the correlation between video game violence and real life violence are for the most part in agreement of the fact that video games are to blame for the corruption of our youth. Yet the psychological studies have also shown that the events that have transpired from game violence to reality are not as connected as once thought to be. Many new studies have suggested that the individuals displayed an inability to cope with their surroundings making them mentally unstable. That there instability was caused by problems at home and problems at school due to an inability to connect their fellow peers. In some studies it has been suggested that some violent games have helped to relive adolescent angst, an outlet to relive stress and suppressed violent tendencies.

In truth there are no defining statistics to prove one way or another that games have a positive or negative effect on people. It’s preposterous to assume that a stable healthy person can be so severely affected by a game. Many studies regarding the topic have been executed and show that...