Does a gruesome virtual death translate to something more frightening in real life? If so is it actual violence or is it something else more or less malicious? His is the basis of my research question which is, do video games lead to more aggression amongst its players? The research conducted to look at how violent video games lead to a heightened sense of aggression, more so than that of television. On one hand people there will be people that claim video games cause do not cause aggression or violence. These are people who play or make video games, and who might feel like something they enjoy is being attacked. On the other hand there are people who will most likely disagree with me are people who think that video games lead to real life violence. Organizations such as Moms against violent video games, or Jack Thompson the anti video game lawyer, are both parties of people who will disagree with me. With the tragedies such as Columbine, or the sandy hook shooting that have occurred in the recent past. More and more people are blaming video games for these incidents. While games do cause increased aggression, I think that knowing the extent of the aggression will help everyone look at theses incidents with a well educated opinion so that everyone can benefit and hopefully stop these tragedies. So far I have found eight sources that have all had some sort of impact in the way I will be putting all the on Levels of Aggression experienced while playing games. These sources all discuss the difference that video games have on someone’s behavior after playing them. One thing that is discussed multiple times in three of my sources is that aggression is lead to incompetence. Which is also experienced in games that are in real life such as twilight imperium. Another source discusses what it is in video games might lead to heightened aggression, and why this happens. Another source that I used looks at the different factors that might go into looking at the levels of aggression, which works well with the previous source looking at the factors a human experiences personally, and what a video game does to immerse the player. Another source I have found combats my position on the subject saying that video games are actually good for children’s behavior. Finally I am using a source that discusses the difference an online video game versus a videogame that is not online and how that effects someone one, on top of the other factors discussed earlier. This is vital to discuss in order to have understanding from both sides, in order to not attack something that people like, while at the same time establish an understanding about video games and aggression in order to stop blaming video games for tragedies, and instead focus on something else. Before we start the argument it is important to define the difference between violence and aggression. Violence is the act of attempting to injure someone or hurt them. Like for example punching someone in the face. An aggressive act would be to look at someone and say that you might punch them in the face but in the end you do not. This is an important definition when looking at the difference between aggression and violence and what it causes in someone.

The MAerican Psychologiacl association is an orginazation that is based on finding the knowledge to beter society through researching different topics. This brings me to the first article which is titled, “Technical Report on the Review Of The Violent Video Game Literature.” This is a review of literature done by the American Psychological Association, in which it looks at a couple of definitive factors that might need to be factored into my argument. This source looks at different factors that are varying such as age, gender, level of exposure and aggressive behavior. The study, which was written by seven people who all with PhDs, concludes that the research is not conclusive enough to say that any of these factors have enough evidence to make a conclusive statement that video games do or do not cause violence. This helps me narrow down my argument in two ways. First being age despite what people might have thought before hand. This also allows the argument to actually be simpler because of the fact that it is not a multi faceted argument. This also makes much more research viable because of the fact that there is no need to factor in multiple things when looking at some research because of the fact that it is not proven to have huge differences in the levels of aggression and certain factors.

The first study I found was published by Forbes titled “At Long Last, Video Game Aggression Linked To Losing, Not Violence” discusses exactly that video games and losing. In the article they use an oxford study in order to discuss the repercussions that video games have to the players overall feelings and attitude after playing a game. This article talks about how the subjects would be annoyed while “Being bad at even a non-violent version of the game was more rage-inducing than playing a violent version with instruction.” This shows us something important that being players of a video game do not need violence in a video game to feel aggression, they just need to feel incompetent. This is important because it shows that someone does not necessarily need to commit a violent action in order to feel incompetent.

The second source I found is titled “Aggression from Video Games 'Linked to Incompetence.'” In this article published by BBC, it discusses a game titled “Half life 2.” A game that is rather graphic in the normal version of the game it in the base version of the game has player shooting humans and aliens alike. This game is considered to be fairly graphic but there was a modded version of the game where enemies would be tagged and evaporated instead. This made the game much less violent, and in turn would hypothetically cause people to show less aggression while playing the game, while this did not happen at all. People who played the violent and non-violent version of the game showed the same amount of aggressive behavior. The thing that tied them together was again a feeling of incompetence. As the article states “some of the gamers were given a tutorial before playing the game so they could familiarize themselves with the controls and game mechanics… the players who had not had the tutorial who felt less competent and more aggressive, rather than people who had played the more violent version of the game” (Lee). This is important because it shows how people who play games are not becoming violent fromt eh violence, but rather the anger that comes from not being able to properly do something, an annoyance of inability. Something that can be felt in other activities as well. A video titled “Why Video Games Make You Aggressive”  a video made by Joe Bereta. The video does discuss the repercussions of feeling incompetent with the statement “When the experience involves threats to our ego, it can cause us to be hostile and mean to others.” This again comes back the idea of incompetence, that being that a sense of incompetence can really lead someone to be upset and feel like as if they are not fit to play a game or as if they are not fit. What all three of these studies are trying to say is that violent or not videogames are not necessarily what is harmful to people.

The article “Why Video Games Make You Aggressive,” also near the end of the video brings the point up of don’t other games like monopoly cause someone to also have their ego attacked and become upset? To this point, he is correct. In an article published in website called Kotaku, titled “The Top 5 Board Games That Really Will Ruin Friendships,” the article discusses some board games like Twilight imperium and Space Marauders will ruin friendships. How so? Well the author Stephen Totilo talks about how someone can be a sore loser but also an “incompetent” (Totilo) player. Incompetence the same thing that has been discussed in the last three sources is still the trigger for some people to become more aggressive and get angry or annoyed over a video game.

This article confirms the claim that Joe bereta made, that being any game, even monopoly can cause aggression. Why? because games like Twilight imperium are board games, and any form of game where incompetence can be shown will rile some people up. This article proves that while yes video games can cause aggression towards someone else, this Kotaku article proves that any game that can have a player with enough incompetence can cause aggression any player, not just video games as long as the player is invested enough in the game that is being discussed or looked at. This is vital to remember in order or people to realize that while video games do cause aggression so do board games and it is simply whenever a new medium of media that come out it is blamed for something.

In another article titled “A Review of the Effects of Violent Video Games on Children and Adolescents” the article looks at a couple of things that cause someone to show a more aggressive response to a medium like video games rather than something such as television. These three things being with those video games have active participation, they reward violent behavior, and they are able to connect a relationship with the character and player better than what television can do. These are all three distinct but important traits. None of these three traits go against the American Psychological Associations list of traits that are inconclusive in whether or not a player is affected.

Two of the three traits that the article “A Review of the Effects of Violent Video Games on Children and Adolescents” directly coincide with the argument that video games cause aggression. These two traits being they have active participation, and they connect a player and the character so that a relationship is formed. This pairs well with the BBC study that was mentioned earlier stating that people would get aggressive and angry when playing a video. It is because of the fact that when someone gets so invested in a game they start to feel not only like the character, but also the player has active participation in the success of the character where a connection was just made. This shows more so that video games have a reason to cause violence.

In an article published by “Health Day” titled “Violent Video Games Don't Influence Kids' Behavior: Study” it claims that video games do not cause aggression in children. In fact it states that “The researchers also said they discovered that kids who played video games for less than an hour a day were more likely to be less aggressive and rated as better-behaved by their teachers” (Dotinga). While this article might have brought up some interesting points with that statement it is in fact wrong.  The article uses a journal from two thousand eleven, titled “Psychology of Popular Medial Culture” in order to back up its claim. While this might initially sound like a strong counter argument there are a couple of important things to think of. First being in the American Psychological study cited earlier it states that play time has no proven effects on behavior. This would go against what was stated in the “Health Day” article. This also goes against the fact that video games have reverse effects of aggressive behavior saying that children who play games have less aggressive behavior. The journal also cited in the article is old being over six years old But since the BBC, Forbes, and YouTube video all stated that video gamed do cause aggression that also debunks the article claim that there is no effects on behavior and video games played. The website that this article was published on also seems to be aimed towards parents and could shows some bias that it could want parents to fell a peace at mind while knowing their children play video games. Article is misinformed, it shows how while not all, but most of the counter arguments are either based on old data like this article, or based on opinion and what the author is guessing rather than on proven fact.

In conclusion I do not in fact think that it is bad that video games lead to more aggression amongst its players. There is a lot of research that shows that yes video games lead to an increase in aggression in its players. Not only does the research add up between the Forbes article, ther BBC article and Youtube Video all stating that video games don’t lead to violence, and The article titled “A Review of the Effects of Violent Video Games on Children and Adolescents,” also stating that video games lead to aggreesion because of the direct player to game character link, it is safe to say that video games lead to heightened aggression. The research that is being used to combat the idea that video games do not cause real life aggression is out dated data, and is factually wrong. With that being said video games are being blamed for recent tragedies such as the sandy hook shooting or columbine. There are also people who believe that video games do and do not cause real life aggression. Between the two the research is shown to back up the claim of the former. None of the studies that have just been presented except for one shows that video games as do in fact cause an increase in aggression. With these recent tragedies being blamed on video games people have been becoming more and more defensive and have been refusing to accept any arguments. As someone who plays video games themselves it is time to face the facts and realize that video games cause violence. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact it is better to realize that video games do cause aggression. For two reasons one being that an educated argument will usually beat an argument based off of opinion. With all the people blaming real life violence on video games they are not educated. So learning the facts and educating people does nothing but good by showing them the facts. This also allows for growth of a community. Showing that people are not making emotional arguments over something that they love, but rather making an argument with fact and something that they love, on how to prevent these mass shootings instead of blaming them on something like video games that has no link to real life violence and video game violence.
