Violence in Video Games

Since I was 6 I was interested in computers and playing games on them. It started with my father teaching me how to run games on DOS. As time went on I got my first video game console, the Nintendo Entertainment System with Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong and Tetris. From there I’ve had every major console in the industry from Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. In recent years, with the increased power of consoles and computers the visuals have become more realistic and with it the video game industry has come under the microscope of many people asserting that realistic violence in video games are making children more violent themselves. Is video game violence really a serious problem?

I’ve played many of the games that are supposedly causing people to want to inflict physical harm on others and have never once thought, “Boy, I sure would like to really go and shoot someone…” But I am much older than the new generation of kids growing up with the increased realism and violence in games.

In “I Wish I Were a Warrior: The Role of Wishful Identification in the Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Adolescent Boys” by Elly A. Konijn, Marije Bijvank, and Brad J. Bushman. The study explores the influence of video games on Dutch adolescent (ages 12-17 years) with lower educational ability. 99 boys were first given a questionnaires to gauge their habitual video game exposure, trait aggressiveness, and sensation seeking (Warrior 1038). Randomly the boys were assigned to play a realistic or fantasy violent or nonviolent video game.

After playing for 20-minutes they were put in a room where they competed with and ostensible partner on a reaction time task in which the winner could blast the loser with loud noise through headphones. A dial from 0-10 was used and that “[p]articpants were told that levels 8, 9, and 10 could cause permanent hearing loss.” (Warrior 1040). The test results were as the authors expected, boys with higher aggression and who played the...