Rodriguez 1
Lorraine Rodriguez
Professor McAlister
ENG 104
24 February 2017
Violent Video Games: Do They Influence Violent Behavior?
I grew up playing video games almost my whole life with my older brother who was also a video gamer. Although I played kid-friendly games, he did not because he was five years older than me. I would even watch him play video games like “Gears of War” and “Halo,” while I also watched him play “The Legend of Zelda.” I have always been interested in video games but as I got older I started playing games that I was afraid to play when I was younger. I sometimes play “Grand Theft Auto,” especially when I am stressed and want to relieve myself of my frustrations through video game violence rather than real-life physical violence. I have done extensive research on the topic of video game violence and whether they can actually cause aggression.
Video game violence and whether or not it actually increases aggression has been a controversial topic ever since violent video games have become increasingly popular many years ago. A few researchers have done experiments to prove that playing violent video games can cause a person to have increase aggression. However, Christopher John Ferguson, from Texas A&M International University states that another researcher had done the “noise blast” test in which the researcher would then punish the player with a sharp sound. While conducting this test, the researcher found that one out of the four players had been effected. This experiment did not prove that aggression is increased by playing violent video games. Ferguson decided to conduct his own research using the same test, however, using a more reliable version but still found no correlation between violent video games and aggression. He did, though, discover that once family violence was controlled, there was no link between violent criminal acts and violent video games (Ferguson).
Increase in aggression and delinquent behavior is usually linked from the child’s environment at home or even at school. According to the article “Children’s Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence and Early Delinquency,” by Siliai Yi, Juliann H. Vikse, and Chien-Chung Huang, early delinquency is mostly influenced by intimate partner violence and other family violence within the household. They made a study that proved that young children and adolescents become more influenced to be delinquent when they are exposed to violence at home. 4,898 mothers and their children were observed and surveyed when the children were ages one, three, five, and nine. When the child was age nine, the researchers would ask the children questions about delinquent behavior in which the child would answer either yes or no. However many yeses the child would say determined the level of the child’s delinquency. At ages one and three, the mother would be assessed based on intimate partner violence which was measured as either economic ab...
