Exposure to violent video games by adolescents has been proven to be linked to an increase in aggression

Courtesy of Daily Mail Online

In 2008, 97 percent of the children ages 12 to 17 in the United States played video games, with half of the top-selling games of that year containing violence according to the Entertainment Software Association. This topic has recently become under analysis by professionals such as Craig Anderson, who has found that this aggression has lead to less caring, less sensitive to pain and more socially awkward human beings.

The causes of this aggression come from adolescents memorizing and acting out certain violent acts that they see done by their favorite video game character in a virtual world. Through constant exposure with no adult guidance, these children start to believe that this type of violence and lifestyle is common in the real world, such as in the picture above that shows a child shooting and killing someone in the game Grand Theft Auto. Repercussions of this include not only aggression towards people and objects, but can even be linked to school shootings by adolescents.

Many of these researchers have used meta-analysis and the General Aggression Model as a way of analyzing the data and coming to conclusions about the behavior and thoughts of these children from repeated and specific exposure to video games such as Doom and Call of Duty.

The memorization of negative video game themes causes adolescents to respond to events much like how a video game character would

As children repeatedly play a video game, they start to act and perform like the characters of the game. According to the Director of Psychology at Iowa State University, Craig Anderson, this is caused by the learning, activation, and eventually application of the video game’s scripts and schema. A video game’s script is how the characters act in the game, and contains information on beliefs, morals and attitudes. What this does to children after long exposure to it is that it makes them think that this type of behavior is acceptable and that it is common to act in such a way.

It has also been stated that after children have acted and demonstrated this aggression towards others, it gives them some sort of feeling of excitement or satisfaction because they have “won the fight” as they would in the video game. This makes it hard for adolescents to distinguish the lines between fantasy and reality.

With violent games such as Grand Theft Auto, this presents a problem because the scripts and concepts to these games are to fight back whenever someone in the game says or does something you don’t like. The other problem with these games is that the player is most likely rewarded for fighting through money or increasing in status in the game.

Psychology Professor at the University of Maryland, Kent Norman, who specializes in cognitive behavior and human/ computer interactions, gives his input about violent video games and how it affects children.

Relating to a character in a violent video game leads adolescents to identifying and acting like said favorite character in a negative way

Courtesy of Instructables.com

In video games where you control only one character, children and teens become emotionally attached because they control the actions of the character basically becoming the character in a fantasy world. Another cause of this is that adolescents usually relate to the character that is the most aggressive, but this aggression is usually seen as a heroic deed in the game making them think that this is okay. The game Halo is one of these games where shooting someone is seen as a a good thing and this gets kids attached to where they are dressing up as character for halloween with a fake weapon by their side, as you can see in the picture to the right. 

This can affect the player’s emotions towards particular people or a concept by integrating the emotions the character feels into how you play the game. While these effects can still occur with people that do not identify themselves with a hostile character, identifying with one increases their chances of embracing aggressive behaviors.

These emotions can translate into real life and affect a person’s relationships and how they see the world. You can see where these acts of aggression come from because in certain violent video games you must protect the character, or yourself, from dying by fighting others. This does not mean that adolescents are going to be killing everyone that gets in their way, but they will show slight signs of aggression because it gives them the same satisfaction they get when they play violent video games.