Violent Video Games in a Violence Saturated World
Video games have come a long way since Pong first showed up in the 1970’s and even farther since the first known video game, Tennis for Two, was created by Physicist William Higinbotham to be used as a science display in the 1950’s. When that simple game was unveiled to visitors, long lines formed full of people wanting to try this new technology. They would press a button to whack a tennis ball over a net represented by a couple of white lines on a modest screen. The funny thing? Higinbotham didn’t even realize what he had created. He just wanted to come up with a display that wouldn’t bore visitors. He was in for a great surprise (aps.org). As the decades rolled on, the barely there …show more content…
Such normal negative emotional reactions tend to inhibit aggressive behavior, and can inspire helping behavior. Repeated consumption of media violence reduces these normal negative emotional reactions (Anderson).
It is a scientific fact that viewing violence affects you in a mental and even physical way. It makes sense. So why do we as a society think video game violence should be any different? A news article discusses the details of a study that was conducted on a group of young teenaged boys playing a non-violent and a violent video game over a length of time. The two games were Animaniacs (a non-violent cartoon) and Manhunt (violent psychological horror game). Half of the boys played violent video games on a regular basis, while the other half did not. As the study commenced, it was learned that during the night the boys who didn’t play violent video games on a regular basis had fast heart rates, and didn’t sleep well as those who were used to it. They also reported feeling sad after playing the violent game. Both groups of boys had high stress and anxiety directly after playing, and both groups were not getting proper sleep. The researchers concluded that lengthy exposure to violent video games could desensitize (Health
Video games have come a long way since Pong first showed up in the 1970’s and even farther since the first known video game, Tennis for Two, was created by Physicist William Higinbotham to be used as a science display in the 1950’s. When that simple game was unveiled to visitors, long lines formed full of people wanting to try this new technology. They would press a button to whack a tennis ball over a net represented by a couple of white lines on a modest screen. The funny thing? Higinbotham didn’t even realize what he had created. He just wanted to come up with a display that wouldn’t bore visitors. He was in for a great surprise (aps.org). As the decades rolled on, the barely there …show more content…
Such normal negative emotional reactions tend to inhibit aggressive behavior, and can inspire helping behavior. Repeated consumption of media violence reduces these normal negative emotional reactions (Anderson).
It is a scientific fact that viewing violence affects you in a mental and even physical way. It makes sense. So why do we as a society think video game violence should be any different? A news article discusses the details of a study that was conducted on a group of young teenaged boys playing a non-violent and a violent video game over a length of time. The two games were Animaniacs (a non-violent cartoon) and Manhunt (violent psychological horror game). Half of the boys played violent video games on a regular basis, while the other half did not. As the study commenced, it was learned that during the night the boys who didn’t play violent video games on a regular basis had fast heart rates, and didn’t sleep well as those who were used to it. They also reported feeling sad after playing the violent game. Both groups of boys had high stress and anxiety directly after playing, and both groups were not getting proper sleep. The researchers concluded that lengthy exposure to violent video games could desensitize (Health