Video games are prevalent around the globe. They are played on mobile devices, computers, and game consoles. People play them at arcades, at home, in automobiles, at school, and virtually any place that an electronic device can be used. Many individuals are concerned if video games can cause anti-social behavior. A lot of empirical studies have shown that video games can cause antisocial behavior by promoting aggressive and violent behavior. This paper sought to answer the question, do video games cause antisocial behavior? It is essential to address this issue as video games have become increasingly popular in the world. Hence people should be aware of their harmful effects which mainly includes antisocial behavior.
Introduction
Video games have become a universal part of almost all adolescents’ and children’s lives. In the United States of America, ninety-seven percent of children play video games for at least one hour per day (Granic, Lobel, & Engels, 2014). They have become an incredibly common as well as a pervasive entertainment form. Video games are considered as interactive where the players cannot calmly surrender to the storyline of a particular game. Instead, video games are created for players to energetically enthrall with their systems for the systems to also react to the agentive behaviors of players. According to Granic, Lobel, & Engels (2014) video games can be played competitively or cooperatively, with either physically present players or with other online players. Additionally, they are played on many devices from consoles (for instance, PlayStation, Nintendo Wii) to mobile devices to computers. The increasing popularity of video games has given rise to an explosion of research on the effects of video games (Prot, Anderson, Gentile, Brown, & Swing, 2009). One of these results is that they cause antisocial behavior.
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Antisocial behavior is disturbing acts characterized by overt as well as covert hostility and deliberate aggression towards other people. The behavior may be overt in that it may involve aggressive actions against peers, siblings, teachers, or parents, such as bullying as well as hitting, and verbal abuse. It may be covert involving aggressive activities against property, like vandalism, theft, and fire-setting. Antisocial behaviors occur along a severity continuum and involve recurring violations of social norms, disregard of authority and other people’ rights, theft, deceitfulness, and reckless disinterest of self and others (Encyclopedia of Children's health, 2010). Very young children can have antisocial behavior. These coercive patterns of behavior will carry on and escalate in severity over time if left unchecked. They may become a ceaseless behavioral disorder.
The main question that this research will address is, do video games cause antisocial behavior? It is imperative to answer this question as video games have become increasingly popular among modern-day children and such games have profound effects. Many individuals are concerned if video games are the cause of antisocial behavior hence it is vital to conduct adequate research to provide information on the subject. The information generated by this research paper will create awareness of antisocial behavior and whether or not it is caused by playing video games.
Method
The method utilized in gaining information for this research paper was using various internet sources. Presently, the internet is the most crucial information source as it a powerful means for sharing and gaining access to information. It has a wealth of knowledge that is available immediately upon any research. It contains many libraries as a source for information collection as well as analysis. This attribute has made the internet a widely utilized tool for researching since it enables individuals to access a meaningful amount of trustworthy information without time limits as well as geographical boundaries.
This research utilized sources from the internet as they are easy to locate and they contain a lot of credible data. Also, the internet enables immediate access to a significant amount of information about a specific subject hence it is easy to find information that you want. Additionally, the research used data from both Google and google scholar search engines. The two search engines are easy to operate, and they provide reliable information. The first critical words used during the process of research included phrases like “video games,” “antisocial behavior,” “effects of video games,” “how do video games cause antisocial behavior,” and “is antisocial behavior a result of playing video games.” The research was also conducted on 9th December 2017.
Results and Findings
According to Anderson, Gentile, & Dill (2012), much research over many years has shown how seeing aggression and violence results in a range of adverse aftermath for children. Negative aftereffects result both from seeing real violence as well as media violence like playing violent video games. Some individuals claim that violent games are responsible for training a generation of murderers to others saying that there is no impact at all. For instance, Jack Thompson who was previously a lawyer before being disbarred commented on ABC’s World News Now program that “In every school shooting, we find that kids who pull the trigger are video gamers.”
Playing violent video games increases the possibility of violent and aggressive behavior in both immediate and long-term situation. Playing video games that are full of violence cause a rise in the possibility of physically aggressive thinking, aggressive behavior, physiological arousal, aggressive affect, as well as low empathy/desensitization. Moreover, it reduces prosocial or desirable behavior (Anderson, Gentile, & Dill, 2012).
Research has indicated that children and teenagers who play video games for many hours face the risk of stunted brain development and growth and a loss of self-control. A recent study realized that the thought processes needed by computer games were too manageable to stimulate vital sectors of the brain, resulting in underdevelopment and ensuing behavioral issues like violence. Following Professor Ryuta Kawashima, of the Tohoku College in Japan, the imminent threat of video games was not in their capability to arouse aggression, as earlier thought, but in the absence of mental stimulation they supplied (Mathews, 2009).
Professor Kawashima and his colleagues measured the activity of the brain of some adolescents while they played a Nintendo game and correlated it to another group engaging in easy arithmetic. The results of the research indicated that, unlike the maths exercise, the video game failed to stimulate the frontal lobe of the brain, a sector which plays a crucial role in the suppression of anti-social impulses and is connected with emotion, learning, and memory (Mathews, 2009). The inability to stimulate this sector of the brain before the age of twenty inhibited the neurons from thickening as well as joining, hence impairing the ability of the mind to control impulses like aggression and violence. A more developed and stimulated brain can control such urges.
Children who actively play computer games tend to experience many problems. According to Kawashima, “the implications are very serious for an increasingly violent society and those students will be doing more and more bad things and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic (Mathews, 2009).” Video games do not result in the development of the brain since they merely need the repetition of easy activities and are more concerned with developing fast reflexes than engaging in more mentally challenging actions like analysis or planning.
Long-term computer games violence impacts on aggression come from the development, reinforcement, and overlearning of aggression-related knowledge components. Every time individuals play violent games, they practice aggressive scripts that educate and reinforce caution for enemies, aggressive activities against other people, expectations that the people around will engage in aggressive behavior. They also practice aggressive scripts that advocate for positive attitudes towards the utilization of violence, and belief that solutions that are violent are appropriate and effective (Anderson & Dill, 2008). Moreover, recurring exposure to graphic images of violence is likely to make a person less sensitive. Intrinsically, the development and automatization of these aggression-related enlightenment structures and the desensitization impacts change the personality of a person. Players who have played video games for a long time have a possibility of becoming more aggressive in outlook, beliefs, attitudes, perceptual biases, and behavior than they were previously.
According to an article by Bushman (2012), computer game play is active which enables people to learn better since individuals learn well when they are actively involved in something. This makes such games dangerous as they have the ability to increase antisocial behavior. Violent video game players have a likelihood of identifying with a violent character present in the game. If the video game is a first-person shooter, the players have a similar visual outlook as the killer. If the game is designed as the third person, the game player controls the activities of the aggressive character from a faraway visual perspective. Individuals are more likely to adopt aggressive behavior when they identify with a character who is depicted as violent.
Video games also cause antisocial behavior since they directly reward violent or aggressive action, for example, by awarding extra points, or by enabling players to continue to the following game level. In some games, the players are given a reward via a verbal praise, like hearing the phrase “Nice shot!” after ending the life of an enemy (Bushman, 2012). It is widely known that rewarding a specific behavior rises its frequency. Empirical research was conducted where teenagers were randomly selected to play a video game that was violent or watch another person play it. Also, there was a nonviolent computer game control condition. The researchers measured aggression via peer nominations of real-life aggressive occurrences during a play session at school (for example, pushing, kicking, hitting another child).
The outcome of the research indicated that boys who played a violent video game displayed more aggressive behavior than the boys who only watched. Violent computer games increase angry feelings, aggressive thoughts, physiological arousal (for instance, blood pressure, heart rate), and aggressive behavior (Bushman, 2012). Also, they reduce empathy feelings for others and helping behavior. This shows that video games have a significant impact on aggression even though they are not the only factor contributes to an increase in aggressive behavior.
Discussion and conclusion
The findings from my research have revealed that playing video games particularly violent ones can indeed cause antisocial behavior in the players. Video games have profound effects on children mainly because of the violence depicted in them. Violent games have the power to create murderers because they emphasize more on violence and other killings of characters. When children are allowed to play such games, they are at a risk of developing violent and aggressive behavior in both immediate and long-term situation.
As previously outlined, antisocial behavior is characterized by aggressive behavior. This aggression may be directed towards people either by hitting, verbal abuse or the aggressive individual may engage in aggressive activities against property, for instance, theft and vandalism. The aggressiveness and violence present in violent computer games can cause antisocial behavior in children and adolescents whereby you can find children hitting other people the way they see in the video games that they play. They may also disrespect authority and the rights of other individuals in real life.
Video games promote antisocial behavior by fostering aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior, physiological arousal, and desensitization in the players. Constant playing of video games results in the underdevelopment of the brain and causes behavioral issues such as violence. The absence of mental stimulation that video games supply profoundly contributes to the onset of antisocial behavior. This is because video games fail to stimulate the frontal lobe of the brain hence anti-social impulses are not suppressed. Children develop aggressive behavior from the computer games through the development, reinforcement, and overlearning of aggression-related knowledge components.
Violent video games promote the thinking in players that aggressive behavior is acceptable because they expect the people around them to engage in violent behavior. Hence, they readily accept the use of violence. The players also adopt the belief that violent solutions are practical. When a person is exposed to violent images or graphics, his or her personality is likely to change. Therefore, video gamers tend to become more aggressive in beliefs, outlook, attitudes, perceptual biases, and behavior than they were before they started playing such games. When video games reward violent behavior, they contribute to the development of antisocial behavior in the players.
The information that this research got from the internet thoroughly answered the research question. From the findings, it is evident that video games can cause antisocial behavior in people because they promote violence and aggression. Thus, people should be careful with the video games that they play.
In a nutshell, video games have become incredibly common as well as a pervasive form of entertainment. Presently, many children and adolescents actively play video games. Many individuals are concerned that playing video games can cause antisocial behavior which is mainly characterized by aggressive actions. Playing violent video games can indeed result in antisocial behavior because most of these games promote violence and aggression. The players tend to identify themselves with the aggressive characters. Furthermore, video games cause underdevelopment of the brain and fail to stimulate the frontal lobe of the brain. Thus, aggressive behavior is likely to occur. In my opinion, parents should not allow their children to play violent video games because they adversely affect behavior. Instead, they should encourage their children to play useful games like chess since such games stimulate the brain.
References
Anderson, C. A., & Dill, K. E. (2008). Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life. Journal of Personality and social psychology , 772-790.
Anderson, C. A., Gentile, D. A., & Dill, K. E. (2012). Prosocial, Antisocial, and Other Effects of Recreational Video Games. Handbook of Children and the Media , 249-272.
Bushman, B. J. (2012, January 27). get-psyched/201201/do-violent-video-games-increase-aggression . Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com: https://www.psychologytoday.com/get-psyched/201201/do-violent-video-games-increase-aggression
Encyclopedia of Children's health. (2010, November). A/Antisocial-Behavior.html . Retrieved from http://www.healthofchildren.com: http://www.healthofchildren.com/A/Antisocial-Behavior.html
Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. C. (2014). The Benefits of Playing Video Games. American Psychological Association , 66.
Mathews, A. (2009, August 20). news/uknews/1337971/Computer-games-make-children-anti-social.html . Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1337971/Computer-games-make-children-anti-social.html
Prot, S., Anderson, C. A., Gentile, D. A., Brown, S. C., & Swing, E. L. (2009). The Positive and negative Effects of Video Game Play. Media and the Well-Being Of Children and Adolescents , 109-128.
