Since the nineties video games emerged into our lives and grew over the years to become a big part of our society. Video games began as simple arcade games with simple ideas and goals but over the years, video games started to evolve and change many times, becoming more complex and getting closer to reality more and more as the years pass. Similar to many aspects of our society there have been many controversies regarding video games, controversies like, video games are spreading false ideas and are just merely ways to push malicious ideas into our society or specifically young adults who occupy the majority of video game players. But the most controversial topic is the suspicion that some of the recent violent acts that occurred in the recent years have been connected in some way to video games that include violence or in other words uncivilized acts. For as long as I can remember I was exposed to technology and that was mainly because of my parents, and over the years I enjoyed playing a variety of video games and saw my sibling grew into them as well, and because of that I am very interested in this topic as a player of said video games and as a parent in the future. Since I think this topic is also important to many in our society like parents, educators and officials I think that the relationship between video game and violence behavior should be clarified. And for the reasons stated above I will argue in my research that video games and violent behavior are not connected and contrary to common belief video games can be useful.

In beginning video games were revolved around very simple ideas like stacking blocks together or having similar ideas to tennis or ping pong. Video games were very simple at the beginning because that was the limit of our technology and also because it was a new field that we have just started to explore. Even though video games were merely just ways of entertainment, video games producers continued to improve video games and over time many features and options have been implemented. Video games changed from being just ways of entertainment to a new way of making profit and because of that reason there was an increase in the production and quality of video games. As a result of that, video games increased in popularity and spread out all over the world increasing the number of players but also raising some voices of disapproval. Video games continued to rise and became a big part of our lives and as a result a video game industry started to form. Competitive tournaments where professional players that are devoting their life to video games started to emerge. As a result of that sudden rise of video games a considerable portion of society started to resist the increase of popularity of video games for many reasons. One of the most discussed reasons is the relationship between violent behavior and video games and the cause of that is the rise in violent behavior in the recent years that ranges from mass shooting and violent acts in schools. In my research I will be arguing that video games do not lead to violent acts and to support my statement I will provide evidence such as research. At the end I hope that video games can be cleared of accusations of causing violent behavior and that video games can be accepted in our society.

Before answering the question of whether video games lead to violent behavior first we have to understand the question more in order to have a clear answer. As Etchells writes in his article about the association between video games and aggression “what do you mean by ‘violent’ video game, and what do you mean by ‘aggressive’ behavior.” (Etchells) First, what kind of games are we talking about when answering the question? There is a huge amount of video games in the world and it is nearly impossible to go and study the results of each and every one of them, so we have to have some kind of criteria to what kind of games to focus on. When looking at research and studies that look at the relationship between video games and violent behavior most of them use games that have graphically violent content such as weapons, wars and any act that symbolizes harming others. The other part of the question that we have to understand is violent behavior or as Etchells says “Aggressive behavior”. When going through a number of sources most of them use two definitions for violent behavior. First definition is having violent behavior and thoughts and the second is acting upon those thoughts or in other words committing acts of violence. In my research I will be answering the question for both definitions of violent behavior since they are different from each other and answering both will help clarify the current misconceptions about video games.

Many studies and experiments have been conducted in order to find the relationship between video games and violent behavior and the result always differs. In the book titled Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy the author conducted three experiments and found the effects of ‘violent’ video games on youth ranging from elementary student to collage students. Their experiments focused mainly on looking for short-term effects of video games on different ages, education levels and genders. The result of these experiments was that there was a minor effect to the youth and the increase in aggression was short-term and that varied depending on the time used and other factors such as age, mental health and prior experience with video games. The authors also viewed prior research on the effects of violent media such as television and film on youth and they concluded “The main conclusion, even from reviews as early as 1969, is that exposure to television violence is a signiﬁcant risk factor for aggression and violence” (Anderson et al). In other words, violent media existed way before the appearance of video games and is scientifically proven to have to have resulted in violent behavior. Since violent media existed before video games it does not make sense to blame video games as the main reason for violence.

Youth violence is a topic that is discussed a lot and many researchers tried to find the factors that might increase youth violence. Whitney DeCamp and Christopher J. Ferguson published research titled The Impact of Degree of Exposure to Violent Video Games, Family Background, and Other Factors on Youth Violence goes in depth on whether the relation between video games and violence related outcomes is due to other factors. Factors that were focused on in Decamp and Ferguson’s research are gender, mental health, race and social influence. When talking about mental health the two researchers looked at the mental health stat and prior mental issues before conducting their studies to see the difference in results when the youth who were included in the study had different results depending on their mental health. The same procedure happened when considering social influence, the authors looked at the family history, characteristics and relationship with the parents and the neighborhoods characteristics. The authors conducted their research with and without including the other factors such as gender, mental health and social influence, and found that including the other factor makes the results of video game influence fade in comparison and in their conclusion the authors stated “These results offer further support to the conclusion that video game violence is not a meaningful predictor of youth violence and, instead, support the conclusion that family and social variables are more influential factors.” (DeCamp et al) The author also advises caution before claim a relationship between video games and violence and that other factors such as mental health and social influence should be the main suspects in youth violence. In an article by Greg Toppo About “Do Video Games Inspire Violent Behavior?” the author states “Children who observe an adult acting violently tend to follow suit when they are frustrated.” (Toppo) Which proves that family and adults in general effect the behavior of the youth and that support the claim that Social influence is a factor that leads to youth violence.

Another research done on the relation between video games and violence is done by a team of researchers led by Christopher J. Ferguson who is department chair of psychology at Statson University in Florida among the many articles and research her conducted is Violent Video Games Don’t Increase Hostility in Teens, but They Do Stress Girls Out which was published in Psychiatric Quarterly which was peer-reviewed. In his research Ferguson and his team examined a study that involved teen between the age of 12 and 18 years old and the participants were made to play violent and non-violent video games randomly and report their levels of stress and hostility both before and after playing the video games. The conclusion as stated in the research is “Hostility levels neither decreased nor increased following violent game play” (Ferguson et al). the experiment consisted of first measuring trait aggression, hostility and stress using methods like written tests and questioners. Following that, games were randomly chosen that range from violet and non-violent games and the participants were allowed to play one game each for a 45-min period. Following the gameplay, the participants did the same test that were done before playing the video games in order to measure their trait aggression, hostility and stress level after playing video games. After that, the data before and after playing video games was compared to find the results. After conducting their research, the team led by Ferguson noticed other findings, like exposure to violent video games increased stress, but only in girls. Also, players who are not used to playing violent video games found them slightly unpleasant to play. The authors also mention that the effects that were observed were short-term and were nonexistent after a short period of time.

One of the counterarguments to my research is that violent video games have aggressive and graphical content and over time these video games act as a brainwashing machine that increase aggressive behavior and increase the risk of commenting crime. An article by Jonathan Wells and Francis Blagburn talking about “Is video gaming bad for you? The science for and against” published in The Telegraph. The authors mention “psychologists claimed that video game players who favor violent 'shoot-em-up' games are more likely to be aggressive and ferocious when offline, and significantly more at risk of committing crimes.” (Wells). This statement is inconsistent with the research done by the American Psychological Association (APA). The research done by the APA which was discussed in an article by Alexander Sifferlin states “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.” (Sifferlin). This statement contradicts with the counterargument which states that violent video games increase the risk of youth committing violent acts.

Video games are not only means of entertainment or wasting time as some claim because it is proven that video games have some benefits to the players. In the article “Cognitive Benefits of Playing Video Games” that is written by Peter Gray who is a research professor at Boston College, the author mentions a number of cognitive benefits that are gained from playing video games. Improvements in basic visual processes are found from playing video games, an example of these improvement is increase in visual contrast sensitive and successful treatment of Amblyopia (Lazy Eye). Gray also mentions other improvement in other fields like attention and vigilance, executive functioning (perception, attention and memory), job-related skills (eye-hand coordination and quick decision-making). It is often thought that the brain is rigid and hard to change but gray states that research into the benefits of video games made that claim less credible and opened a new field of study. Gray also advises parents by saying “The bulk of the research suggests that the claims about negative effects of video gaming are largely myths and the positive effects are real.” (Gray). Misconception have been spreading about video game and the parents who hear about these misconceptions get overprotective and without looking into these misconceptions limit their children’s play because of these misconceptions.

In the end, the connection between video games and violent behavior is highly discussed, studied and researched. Researches and studies about this topic vary in what they consider as violent video game and that causes some issues when comparing the results of these researches and studies. Also, since violent behavior is divided into two definition it also made comparing results slightly harder. Nevertheless, these differences can also be helpful in generalizing what violent video games are, also the deference in violence resulted help find answers and solutions to the issues. What was concluded from the above sources is that video games does not result in youth violence and if their any effect from video games it should be similar to other forms of media such as TV and film. In this case, regarding youth violence video should not be the main culvert but among a number of factors and should be considered part of the media that have in our life’s. When comparing the effects of video games on youth violence and effects of other factors such as mental health and social influence, video game effect fades in comparison to the other factors and that indicates that we should focus more on the main causes of youth violence and stop blaming everything on video games. Of course, video games are not completely innocent, but the effects can be easily avoided by following the rating system and carful observation from the parents. 
