Violence in video games has grown worse over the years, and the general public is uneasy with the amount of savagery in video games. Video games are becoming more realistic, and the amount of detail that goes into murdering people is becoming disturbingly lifelike. Players of these video games engage in all sorts of vicious acts for many consecutive hours, and that notion makes me question if all that exposure to violence has any substantial effects on the players. As someone who has played some rather violent video games, this topic was incredibly thought-provoking and caused me to possibly suspect that somehow even I might have been affected negatively by these frightening games. The core issue that I would like to decipher is if violent
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While Flanagan does describe gamers as having less empathy, he doubts the deduction by demonstrating that just because they do not react as much does not mean they lack empathy. He compares that idea with people becoming more accustomed to the images of starving children as people have seen many images before. Likewise, he illustrates that the machine which was used to look at the gamers emotions “has ‘worked’ on a dead fish” (2) which can lower the accuracy of that study. Finally, Flanagan explains why violent video games differ from other media. He states “video games differ from [other] media crucially because we’re not just being asked to listen and take part passively…we -everyone- is an actor” (3). Flanagan’s argument gave me a deeper understanding of the negative sides of violent video games. It made sense to me that gamers would exhibit changes in behaviors based on their gaming genre, and that study helped prove to me that violent games can make people display more aggressive traits. I found it interesting that on the positive side, “nice” games can reinforce good behavior. I related this idea to movies, as I feel more inclined to do better things if I watch a motivational movie however when I watch an action packed film …show more content…
From the previous article I learned what violent video games can do to behavior, but now I can comprehend how it relates to actual crime. In the article, “Violent Video Games Can Desensitize Players and Increase Aggression” George Drinka, a child psychiatrist, speculates that murderers use violent video games as a tool to train to kill people. He states that Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, spent much of his time inside and one of his main interests was playing violent videogames. He also seemed to have quite a collection of video games as “The police describe discovering a vast cache of video games, many with violent content, in particular the game entitled Call of Duty.” (2) Drinka describes that another murderer, Anders Brevig, was also rather fond of Call of Duty and that he actually admitted to using that game as practice for his mass shooting in Norway. Drinka makes the connection that because both murders played violent video games, they got more withdrawn from the real world, and more involved with virtual reality thus making them more out of touch with people and more inclined to do violent things. He states that in video games, “The enemies are always dehumanized…and the shooter perfects the techniques of pointing accurately, squeezing the trigger smoothly, and moving on to the next victim.”(3). Drinka
While Flanagan does describe gamers as having less empathy, he doubts the deduction by demonstrating that just because they do not react as much does not mean they lack empathy. He compares that idea with people becoming more accustomed to the images of starving children as people have seen many images before. Likewise, he illustrates that the machine which was used to look at the gamers emotions “has ‘worked’ on a dead fish” (2) which can lower the accuracy of that study. Finally, Flanagan explains why violent video games differ from other media. He states “video games differ from [other] media crucially because we’re not just being asked to listen and take part passively…we -everyone- is an actor” (3). Flanagan’s argument gave me a deeper understanding of the negative sides of violent video games. It made sense to me that gamers would exhibit changes in behaviors based on their gaming genre, and that study helped prove to me that violent games can make people display more aggressive traits. I found it interesting that on the positive side, “nice” games can reinforce good behavior. I related this idea to movies, as I feel more inclined to do better things if I watch a motivational movie however when I watch an action packed film …show more content…
From the previous article I learned what violent video games can do to behavior, but now I can comprehend how it relates to actual crime. In the article, “Violent Video Games Can Desensitize Players and Increase Aggression” George Drinka, a child psychiatrist, speculates that murderers use violent video games as a tool to train to kill people. He states that Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, spent much of his time inside and one of his main interests was playing violent videogames. He also seemed to have quite a collection of video games as “The police describe discovering a vast cache of video games, many with violent content, in particular the game entitled Call of Duty.” (2) Drinka describes that another murderer, Anders Brevig, was also rather fond of Call of Duty and that he actually admitted to using that game as practice for his mass shooting in Norway. Drinka makes the connection that because both murders played violent video games, they got more withdrawn from the real world, and more involved with virtual reality thus making them more out of touch with people and more inclined to do violent things. He states that in video games, “The enemies are always dehumanized…and the shooter perfects the techniques of pointing accurately, squeezing the trigger smoothly, and moving on to the next victim.”(3). Drinka