Do Video Games Make You Violent?

While it is true that the top five video games at the moment are all shooter games, politicians frequently accuse video games of contributing to some of the violence in our society. However, do the firearms in these games actually cause hostility in real life? Do violent video games cause violence? The claim that video games instill violence in children is one of the principal criticisms leveled against them.

Priming is a type of unconscious memory in which a stimulus affects how a following stimulus is received. For instance, if I were to ask you to name a fruit and I uttered the term yellow, you would probably reply banana. This resulted in a study where participants were given one of two games to play. In one game, students had to avoid crashes while driving a car. A another one in which they were merely a mouse dodging a cat. Based on priming, the researchers postulated that after the game, participants would classify items connected to the game they had played more rapidly in the real world.

The participants were then asked to identify, in a split second, whether the images they saw depicted a bus or a dog. The people who played the automobile game did not classify vehicles any faster. Furthermore, the cat game players did not classify animals any quicker. As a matter of fact, players in each game reacted to the associated category more slowly. indicating that there may be instances of negative priming. Oh, science, you're just playing tricks on us all the time, don't you? But, in contrast to the 8-bit games of the past, modern game developers are able to create amazing visuals.

Consequently, another complaint is that games that are more realistic are more prone to incite aggressive behavior. One research had participants play one of two Kombat games in order to investigate this idea. One where the motions of the characters were based on the human skeleton, resulting in incredibly realistic death behaviors, and one where the figures were represented using rag doll physics. Extremely implausible fatalities were employed in the other game.

A word association test was then used to gauge the level of anger, and there was no increase in aggression in the game including the more realistic fatalities. Most existing research indicates no connection between violent video games and violence. According to a meta-analysis of research demonstrating a causal relationship between aggressiveness and gaming, these studies frequently employed faulty lab tests for hostility.

For instance, assessing heart rates and brain waves doesn't always indicate criminal activity. Moreover, the association that has previously been discovered has been marginal. It's a fiction, according to criminologists who research mass killings, that violent video games cause crime.

In reality, the US Supreme Court decided in 2011 that there was no conclusive evidence between aggressive conduct and violent video games. Regretfully, everyone is aware of how frequently violent media and video games come up in discourse following a crime. In actuality, though, this may be detracting from the more important reasons why violence occurs.

In conclusion, despite the prevailing narrative that violent video games contribute to real-world aggression, scientific evidence largely refutes this claim. Research, including studies on priming and realistic versus fantastical game content, has consistently shown that there is no substantial link between playing violent video games and increased aggression. The Supreme Court's 2011 decision underscored the lack of conclusive evidence connecting violent games with criminal behavior. The ongoing focus on video games in discussions of violence may overshadow more pressing societal issues. As such, it's crucial to address the root causes of violence rather than attributing it to interactive media, which, according to current research, does not significantly impact real-world aggression.