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.

Violent video games have been linked to an increase in aggressive behavior in adolescents

Exposure to violent video games by children has been proven to be linked to an increase in aggression. This topic has recently become under analysis, and professionals such as Craig Anderson have found that this aggression has lead to less caring and more socially awkward human beings. The repercussions of this include not only increased aggression but can even lead to kids shooting each other. Many of these researchers have used meta-analysis as a way of analyzing the data and coming to conclusions about the behavior and thoughts about these children from repeated and specific exposure.

Video game scripts and social expectations are translated into real life

As children repeatedly play a video game, they start to act and perform like the character of the game. With violent games such as Grand Theft Auto, this presents a problem because the scripts to these games are to fight back whenever someone in the game says or does something you don't like. What this does to children after a 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 as way. What it also does is makes it hard for adolescents to distinguish the lines between fantasy and reality. Psychology professor at the University of Maryland, Kent Norman who specializes in cognitive behavior and human/ computer interactions, gives his input about these video games and how it affects children.

Exposure to violent video games can lead to life-changing problems
Not only does constant exposure to violent video games cause aggressive behavior, but it has also been proven to cause children to be less sympathetic and less sensitive to pain. This can lead to the breaking of controllers or video game consoles from rage or even worse it can lead to a child bringing a gun to a public place or school and reenacting what they did in the video game. In 1997, Evan Ramsey a student at Bethel Regional High School entered school one day with a 12-gauge shotgun and killed 2 people, blaming his shooting on the video game "Doom" he use to play. During an 2007 interview, Ramsey expressed his confusion when he said, "I did not understand that if I... pull out a gun and shoot you, theres a good chance your not getting up." Though this is one example, many school shootings have been examined to be linked to an obsession with violent video games such as the Columbine Massacre and the shooting at Virginia Tech.

Practice Videos

Americans are wasting approximately 23 hours on social networking and texting each week

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Personalization is not as strongly found, as it should be in the article

This article could use many components of personalization including more conversational language. Many readers may not be as interested in the topic as others, so when they see confusing words such as "tech platforms" or "niche social networks", they lose all the interest that they had in the article and continue to search for a better article. The article is also focused on the statistics, including many numbers and percentages that drown out the actual text and analysis that is in the article. I think that the author should have just referenced the charts that are already included in the article, and include all of the percentages and statistics making it easier to read. 

Embedded links and the ability to share on different social media outlets make Interactivity evident

As shown on the left, the interactive "sharing bar" in this article allowed you to let your followers of any social media network read what you just read. What was extra special was that it followed you up and down the article, allowing you to share it at any moment. Another component of Interactivity is embedded links, which this article shared in the first paragraph. It allowed you to look more into the groups that were active in this survey by embedding their companies website into it. Another point of advice I would give to the author, is to include subheadings to help the reader find exactly what they might be looking for. One thing that I would change about the article is that I would allow the user to click on the graphs, and be able to view a larger picture of the said graph. This helps the user to not strain their eyes to view the data presented.

By including graphs about the data found, the author helps include Contiguity into the article

In this article it includes many graphs and data that helps present the results to the reader. The graphs are married into the article by placing them in the exact spot that the data on it is being explained. This helped to reinforce the staggering data about the amount of hours people spend on social media networks. The graphs are also self explanatory, with an including insight about the data below the graph, as well as the exact percentages found next to the bar with the respected social networking sites.

The reduction of kick-outs is found in functioning embedded links, up to date designs, but is not found in the ads

Functioning embedded links give readers the ease of not having to find the link that the article was suppose to bring them too, which destroys the readers attention to the article and website. The large, urban font helps bring in readers compared to an out of date design that takes some time to load. One thing that I would change to help further reduce kick-outs is to get rid of the few ads that are found on the sides of the article. As you can see in the image, their many colors and large font help distract the reader from paying attention to the article and that reduces the amount of knowledge that they are going to take out of the article.

Study shows that college students involved in greek life are more vulnerable to substance abuse

Professors at the University of Michigan compared the patterns of substance abuse in those in greek life organizations and those that are not. Data was collected by 5883 undergraduate students in two waves, as a freshmen in college and then two years later as a junior, and tracked not only members of fraternities but those in sororities. As you can see in the chart below, the results that were found were that those in a fraternity produced higher results in all categories and that as they spent more time in the fraternity the higher their results are. This study negatively affects the perception of greek life to those not in it as they may not know of the community service and philanthropy that greek organizations hold every year.

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Percent of students that use various forms of technology to communicate with one another for academic work