Impact of Violent Video Games on Teenager's Behavior

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold launched an assault on Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, murdering 13 and wounding 23 before turning the guns on themselves. Although nothing is for certain as to why these boys did what they did, facts that Harris and Klebold both enjoyed playing the bloody, shoot-'em-up video game Doom, a game licensed by the U.S. military to train soldiers to effectively kill. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which tracks Internet hate groups, found in its archives a copy of Harris' web site with a version of Doom. He had customized it so that there were two shooters, each with extra weapons and unlimited ammunition, and the other people in the game could not fight back. For a class project, Harris and Klebold made a videotape that was similar to their customized version of Doom. In the video, Harris and Klebold were dressed in trench coats, carried guns, and killed school athletes. They acted out their videotaped performance in real life less than a year later.

This incident drew the attention of the world towards the unethical and dangerous aspects of playing violent video games. Nearly 66 million children and teens under the age of 18 are video game players. One-third of all video games purchased are rated "M" for mature audiences only. When video games first came out, indeed they were addictive... however, there seems to be a strong correlation now between the violent natures of games these days and the aggressive tendencies in game players. The issue of whether or not video game violence influencing aggression has been addressed for over 20 years. Recent acts of extreme violence involving teens and associated links to violent video games have led to an increased interest in video games violence. Anderson and Bushman’s (2002) meta-analysis suggests that violent video games, in fact, do influence aggressive behavior. They have posited the GAM to explain the mechanism behind the link between...