Do violent video games cause bad behavior in teenagers? This debate is relevant today due to the peak in the use of violent video games among teenagers, where competitions even exist to see who can play them better. The potential effect of these games on aggression and violent behavior among teens has been questioned and examined severally with contrasting results. However, video games do not cause bad behavior in teenagers.
There has been no increase in violent crimes to correlate with the increased use of video games among teenagers. In fact, some researchers have concluded that the level of such crimes has reduced significantly since the 1990s. In fact playing video games has some positive social, intellectual, and emotional effects on growing teenagers. They can be an outlet for negative emotions thus making the teenager more emotionally balanced, which enhances their attention and interaction with others.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Other forms of violence depicting media do not cause increased aggression. Violence has always been incorporated in entertainment for most of human history. In Roman times, children were allowed to watch gladiators spur and kill each other in the coliseums. Beheadings and hangings of criminals were public spectacles that children were allowed to attend, and stories that depicted violence were told and written in numerous books. Recently, there has also been a peak in gruesome horror films and TV shows. All these forms of media are not attributed to increased aggression among watchers most of whom are children and video games are no different.
However, many still believe that violent video games cause teenage aggression because they teach teenagers the mechanisms of committing violence and desensitize them from feeling guilt or remorse about it. These games are viewed as a modeling tool that can easily alter behavior in the easily impressionable teenagers and cause other issues such as addiction which can affect performance in school.
Ultimately, violent video games do not cause bad behavior in teenagers because they are simply a form of entertainment. They might even be helpful in mitigating aggression and bad behavior by being an outlet for negative emotions. Despite limited proof, some still believe that children can model the behavior depicted by these games and thus develop violent tendencies.
