Cadet Michael A. Banholzer
Mrs. Smith
ERH-102-08
29 February 2016
Violent Video Games’ Affect on Hostility
The content in video games has become an intense and complex subject over the past decade. With the introduction of more violent video games such as Call of Duty and Battlefield, it is an ongoing debate as to the affect that these games have on children and young adults. This dispute applies to me directly because I have played video games my whole life. I believe that video games are an essential component of expression in youth. Being able to embody a fiction character and have consequences, in game, depending upon what you choose to do can teach a child a lot about him/herself. There have been many studies attempting to prove that violent video games effect hostility in children, however, there has never been a proven correlation between the two. Ultimately the ideas of violence in video games and whether or not they effect aggressive tendencies leads us down a slippery path. Both views present an issue of the first amendment, the freedom of speech. Can you stop a company from making a violent video game if that is what their imagination leads them to create? You also cannot stop a child from expressing themselves within a game if that is what they desire to do. I argue that any violent expression that comes about doesn’t stem from the video game itself, but rather how they were raised and the environment in which they grew up in. Does the environment in which you grew up in, nurture, effect your thoughts and actions concerning putting the blame of hostility on other things such as video games rather than yourself?
In a peer-reviewed journal written by Jack Hollingdale, he provides a prime example of how nurture amongst a child’s early years leads to hostility rather than video game content (1). I choose to begin with this source because it provides a great baseline of my overall argument of how aggressive tendencies begin from birth. The study is conducted by having participants play one of two video games, either Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 of Little Big Planet 2. After playing the game the participants were informed that their co-participants dislike spicy food and they were asked to prepare hot chili for their partner (3). The results ensued and were compared based on which video game they played compared to the amount of spice that they put in the chili for their partner. This experiment is invalid in two ways. First of all, one of the results gathered from the experiment was that Call of Duty was more violent than Little Big Planet. That is common knowledge and the fact that it came out of the experiment as a result shows that nothing was gained from using the procedure present. Lastly, involved the chili part of the experiment. Putting spice in hot chili has no correlation to any aggression you have, from a video game. You may have some hostility underlying from your childhood that leads to put more spice in the chili. For example, if things like that were encouraged to be funny as a child then you will most likely put more spice into the chili. This goes back to my first ideal of nurture as the cause of hostility rather than any violent video game you might play. This source provides great insight into one of the many examples of experiments that attempted to find a correlation between violent video games and hostility, but ultimately failed miserably.
Another peer reviewed journal written by Tobias Greitemeyer explains why it has become “common knowledge” that violent video games cause aggression in our country’s children (1). Greitemeyer’s participants in his experiment were half in belief that violent video games cause hostility and half opposed to that ideal (3). Both groups were given two articles describing the phenomenon with opposing views on the topic. Every single participant agreed with their side presented in the article even if clear evidence disproved what they thought (3). This shows the issue that is present throughout the phenomenon. Nurture is key to the results of this experiment as well. Each person was raised a certain way, and that affects the way they view the topic of violence in video games. The argument’s base issue is whether you were taught that you can blame little things, such as a violent video game, for your mistakes and issues. No matter the evidence presented, people will stick with their side of the argument (5). This is why the argument will continue to live on because people will not back down from their side of the argument. I am beginning to see an ongoing argument that will truly never be solved. In fact, it will only get worse. Each side will pass their ideals of responsibility and freedom of expression down to their children and the separation will only expand more. An interesting research project to go from here has to do with politics and home life. I would bet that there is a correlation between parents’ views on violent video games’ effects and whether or not they allow their children to get away with things and blame their failures on other things/people.
My thoughts have begun to move towards a correlation between not just nurture but the extent of what parents allow their children to get away with and whether they then allow themselves and their children to blame aggression and outbursts on violent video games. As of now, I believe that whether or not a parent makes their child take responsibility for their actions has a direct parallel to not just allowing video games to be the source of blame but rather any example of common blame for aggression rather the the true root of the problem, nurture from the parents or environment where they were raised in. The research that I need to conduct next is a comparison between nurture of the home life compared to the child’s outlook on blaming him/herself for actions such as aggression from a violent video game. Continuing to research this topic will prove my ultimate argument that violent video games have no direct correlation to violent tendencies in children.
Works Cited
Hollingdale, Jack, and Tobias Greitemeyer. “The Effect of Online
Violent Video Games on Levels of Aggression.” PLoS ONE 9.11 (2014): n. pag. Web.
Greitemeyer, Tobias. “I Am Right, You Are Wrong: How Biased
Assimilation Increases the Perceived Gap between Believers and Skeptics of Violent Video Game Effects.” PLoS ONE 9.4 (2014): n. pag. Web.