Are Computers Making Your Children Shooters?
by Sam
Video games are a very controversial topic that is fairly new. The first in
home video games came out in the 1970s, with the release of the Atari 2600.
The NES proceed the Atari and came out in 1985. However, the first
arguments about video games causing violence did not start until the late 1990s
and early 2000s. Since the 1990s, acts of violence, like terrorism and school
shootings, have been televised and publicised. Because of this, many people blame
these acts of violence on video games. Ever since, there have been numerous
studies proving and disproving a causal link between violence and violent video
games.
My position on the topic is that video games do not make you violent in
any way. An argument that comes up frequently is that many perpetrators of
school shootings play violent video games.
After the shooting at a high school in Broward County Florida, Lawmaker
Jared Moskowitz said the gunman “was prepared to pick off students like it’s a
video game.” It would make sense that a troubled teen would replicate the
violence he spent so many hours on in the virtual world. However, like many
things, people tend to blame one thing as the main cause, when in reality there
is many most of the time. Tony Farrenkopf, a forensic psychologist in Portland,
Oregon, said “Many mass shootings are motivated by revenge or envy. That's
why many take place at a school or a workplace where shooters felt rejected.”
Furthermore, the sales of violent video games have gone up while violent crime
among minors has gone down. From 1994 to 2014 the total sales of video game
related products went up by 204% while violent crimes has gone down by 37%
and juvenile murders has gone down by 76%. Many people also argue that
simulating violence can cause violence. In 2015, peer-reviewed studies stated
that there was "compelling evidence that the use of realistic controllers can have
a significant effect on the level of cognitive aggression."