Violent Video Games As A Cause Of Violence In Teenagers

As a little girl I remember being forbidden from watching certain TV shows or playing videogames that embraced violence. In today’s era of advanced technology, I can understand the fear of those parents who confidently believe that exposing children to these type of entertainment can have a negative effect in their behavior. The stories that are constantly portrayed in the media about teenager shooters, bullying, and violence against women in schools definitely show a problem in the behavior of children today. Nonetheless, the use of video games can’t be generalized as a cause of violence in juveniles until a controlled experimental research is conducted to prove a cause and effect relationship between both aspects. Otherwise, the link between real-life and screened violence remains as a correlation that may …show more content…
The researcher would make sure to obtain a representative sample from a relevant population, which could come from either a large school or several schools in a district area. For example, the researcher could compare the amount of hours a juvenile spends playing violent video games on a daily basis to his or her conduct grade. If the parents’ perceptions of the negative effects of violent video games in teenagers were to be true, the relationship between both variables would be inverse. This would mean that the higher the amount of hours a teenager spends playing these games on a daily basis, the lower its conduct grade. A researcher may observe this negative correlation and predict that violent video games have an effect in adolescent behavior. A correlational study only serves to determine a prediction and not a cause and effect relationship, which would require data that is well collected through an experiment in order to make