Have you ever played a violent video game as a kid? Parents feel the need to not let their kids play violent video games, because of the fact that they think it will make them violent. The way parents feel about these violent games is wrong; kids don't see violent video games as a gateway to act the wrong way. They see It as a gateway to get away from things in real life, where they can be a person they are not. Even if it's a war hero or a villain, it's all fun and games to them. There is not enough conclusive evidence to prove that violent video games show aggression in children and adolescence. 

This day of age video games is the new thing for kid to play. They don't go outside and play with there peers or go explore the neighbor hood like we used to do. Now they play with there peers online through the web and don't leave their house.  A problem with this is some of the games parents have concerns, on whether their kid should play this violent game or not. In an article written by John L Sherry, who studied at Michigan state university and is the assistant professor at the department of communication at Purdue University says that "video games have become very popular among children and adolescents, causing great concern for parents, teachers, and policy makers" (Sherry 411). People tend to think that video games have the most effect on kids' brains which is not true. Results say "there is a smaller effect of violent video games on aggression than has been found with television violence on aggression" (Sherry 420). With that being said children watching television gives more aggression than kids playing video games. The world we live in is a dangerous place. The media shows all kinds of gross and filthy things that can ruin a kid's life. which all kids have access to through there phone or the television. Penelope Trumk says that "real world media is worse than violent video games" (Trumk 2016). Video games give kids opportunity for kids to express their feelings and deal with stress they have been dealing with all day between school and extra activities. It makes them not cause drama in the real world. Instead, parents take that away from them when they think they are playing to much. When that happens some kids may or my not resort to acting on the events that go through their heads and make them come true since they are so stressed out with their lives. 

Researchers have been on this topic for years now since video games have become more popular. They never really have come to a conclusion yet but they have done test on boys and girls to see if their mindset changes in the process of playing violent video games. Some say that if you play certain games long enough it will make you more aggressive. So researchers did an experiment on that hypothesis.  The research said "Players were not statistically different from the non-playing control group in their beliefs on aggression after playing the game than they were before playing" (Williams, Marko 220).  It shows that it had no effect on playing a violent video game or not, although it says "that from what we know now and all the research we have done we can't exactly find strong data saying games lead to aggression ... . I'm not saying some games don't lead to aggression, but I am saying the data is not there yet until we have more long-term studies" (Williams, Marko 230). According to British researchers, violent games have no effect on children. Even though some kids who play games all day long may have somewhat of an effect on how they think or act it is not to the point where it is a conflict in how they treat people. There habits in school and peers slightly change. They might be more active than the other kids they are around, but who is not active as a child? Its what kids do, even gender has nothing to do with it. Girls and boys had the same outcome after the research they did. 

 A writer named Gabe Zichermann is an author whose work centers on gamification. In his TED talk, he told the audience how playing games were good for young adults to play. He gave a few reasons why. A few of his reasons were that they made kids smarter by multitasking. "How games now are way more complex than the games our parents used to play that had a joystick and two buttons" (Gabe 2011). Now it's a controller and in some games, you are looking at a map and talking to your teammates to help you find your goal in the game. Gabe says, "that people that can multi-task are better test takers" (Gabe 2011). Even when they have been playing the game for a few months it still gets harder with new levels so it always keeps the brain thinking. Which people should believe more in and actually listen to men and women like Gabe because he makes very decent points on how games can help children in life. Adding on to that video games show violent behavior in a virtual world. Kids will get on their game system and kill, rob, or do whatever they want to do in this game they play. Now reading this, it might sound bad but in a way its better off for them to do It in a game where they are hurting no one or getting in to trouble than actually causing these events outside in the real world. Now yes there has been a few incidents about how people take video games and try to do them in real life, but these people are mentally ill and have problems in their social life. regular kids play games to have fun and experiment things they would never really do in real life. 

Whenever there is a shooting people tend to turn to violent video games as the result of why that shooting happened. In this article the American psychological association found "there is insufficient research to support that link. It found that there is evidence showing the games increase aggression but not enough to demonstrate that playing the games lead to criminal behavior or delinquency" (Applebaum). Mark Appelbaum from the task force chair explains in this article the research they have done, "Scientists have investigated the use of violent video games for more than two decades but to date, there is very limited research addressing whether violent video games cause people to commit acts of criminal violence ... ... However, the link between violence in video games and increased aggression in players is one of the most studied and best established in the field" (Applebaum).The topic is non stop, no one really knows that video games do to the human brain. We have assumptions, but those assumptions may or may not be right. In 2012 there was a kid named Adam Lanza who shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut. Investigators started to search hi house and see why he caused this chaos for no reason. They found out that he would go to the same spot every single weekend for the past three months before the shooting, the area he would go to was a movie theater. Investigators asked around if they had seen him there before, they all said yes "he would come here all the time but never see a movie" (Casey). Before arriving at the movie theater they thought his actions were corrupted by playing violent video games, but when they got to the arcade they did not believe what they would find. When this 20-year-old boy went to the arcade he would play dance dance revolution, most thought it was violent video games but violent games had no factor in this shooting. The article says, "Yet no one knows how any of these games -- Dance Dance Revolution included -- might have affected a kid who was clearly struggling. The truth is that decades of research have turned up no reliable causal link between playing violent video games and perpetrating actual violence. This is not to say that games have no effect. They're built to have an effect. It's just not necessarily the one that most people think" (Casey).

There are many theories that scientist make about this topic of how violent video games effect their mindsets. In another research experiment on British primary school children found "that the length of time young people spends playing games, rather than their content, could have an effect on their behavior or school performance." The study explains how playing any game with your friends could benefit you in interacting with other people other than playing alone. The kids who mostly played "solitary games generally performed better academically and were less likely to display aggression" (Toppo).  Now those are good facts about games in general and how they can help you both by playing with your peers and by yourself. Video games are fun and exciting, not to say that killing people a robbing banks are fun but doing those things in a game will not inspire me to go out and commit a murder for no reason. In some of these violent games they do have things that you can do that aren't really disturbing to the human eye. You could go buy a penthouse suit or go and buy tons of luxurious cars that you could never afford in real life, you might be afraid of heights so you go on a plane and jump out and parachute into the ocean. That is fun to mist kids to do these things in a virtual world, one because they don't have the time or money to do any of this thing and they are not old enough. But just because they go on rampages and shoot people for fun and let the cops chase you around and evade them does not mean they will be inspired by that and go do it. It says in this article by the American Psychological society that:

"Video games are the most profitable form of entertainment in the world today, bringing in vastly more money than book sales and movie sales combined. Over 1.4 billion people the world over are playing games. We spend 3 billion hours each week playing them. Despite that gruesome aforementioned torture scene, Grand Theft Auto V  has sold nearly 52 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling video game of all time. How many of those 52 million gamers are going to run out and kill another person? Statistically, not very many ...  ...  Video games are an art form, and like films and books before the medium, gaming is starting to truly develop its own voice. If you think a game is too violent, don't play it. If you think your child can't handle a game's content, be a good parent like mine were and get involved in your child's gaming activities, or shield them from that content entirely if you feel that's the best methodology to deploy. But until you've actually played these games, please don't pass judgment on those of us who have. And for the love of God, don't try to force these games to change because you, a person who will never play them, take issue with their content. You might be behind the curve on gaming, but that doesn't give you a right to tell me or anyone else what we should consider safe, harmless fun" (Terzi).

How could people just be caught up on the fact that video games are the main point how young adults get their behavior from. There are so many things that could trigger their appeal about life, like a movie or TV show. They have the same effect and show the same things even in more detailed manor. Phycologists say that:

"it is important to bear in mind potential moderators of the impact of video game and other media violence because it is obvious that individuals are not affected equally by such exposure. Key individual differences include age, gender, characteristic level of aggressiveness (trait aggression), and intelligence. Psychosocial moderators may include cultural environment, socioeconomic status, and family values and control of child's exposure to media violence. Depending on the nature and interactions of each of these variables, individuals may be more or less affected by media violence". 

No matter what video game a kid plays it will not increase aggression. In this paper, it explains the reasons behind how violent video games don't increase a child's aggression. Video games are supposed to be fun and exciting to a child's eye, not try to influence them to be bad kids growing up. 

 Young adults have problems showing their emotions to anyone: parents, teachers, and peers. The only time they feel like they can bring that emotion out is by themselves. Whatever that comfort level is to them, they need to be satisfied in what they do. For some, it's sports or reading or inventing something. But for the kids that aren't athletic or don't have a unique talent they play video games. Video games are a great invention. It started with the arcade after school. Everyone would go to the arcade and hang out there and play games for a few hours before going home. The only difference today is that we have systems at our house and a variety of games with blood and gore and nudity. When parents were growing up they didn't have the games we have today and it scares them into thinking what their kid will be doing if they let them play these violent games. Playing games helps the mind. It's challenging and complex; you see kids today being highly talented in tons of things and one of the reasons is because they can multi-task well. You can improve multitasking by playing video games. Even violent ones to that, because there are different levels where you have to figure things out that get harder and harder each time. To kids, games are a get away from the real world. They can get in the virtual world, meaning video games, and be whoever they want to be. That may be shooting civilians because it's fun to them and getting chased around by cops. Let's be honest, we all know a kid is not going to be brave enough to go steal a car and have a joy ride. Has it happened before, yes, but there are more reasons than a game that goes into that. 

 Games are fun and exciting and very interesting, violent or not. As a society, we should not be scared of kids playing rated R games thinking they will go blow up or steal a car. So what? Are you going to let your kid not have fun and not let him do what he loves because you're scared of what the outcome is? Ask yourself that.

