The Effects of Video Game violence on the younger generation
Introduction
The game ‘Man Hunt 2’ was banned in the UK for its extreme violence (Boyes 2007). It is games like this that have raised questions around the levels of violence in games. The researcher wants to find out if and how violent games cause aggressive behaviour in the youth of today. Many games you take the role of a criminal such as in the widely controversial ‘Grand Theft Auto’ where you have the ability to kill and steal. The researcher believes that this many be an influence in the involvement of teenagers in crimes today. The hypothesis:
‘Violence in video games is causing aggressive behaviour in the younger generation, therefore the violence in gaming should be banned’
The researcher also wants to find out what the public thinks is the appeal of violent games to teens and children, whether it is the fact you can kill, the experience etc. He believes that one of the reasons so many young people are playing violent games is because their parents do not know about the aggressive patterns in children that derive from gaming. Some of the biggest selling games are all violent such as the Call of Duty series were you play the part of a soldier. Some people may think of this as an educational game about war, however it still rewards you for killing people and fighting the talaban. The researcher will look into what makes these games so popular. He will use questions to find out the answer to his title. The main ones to ask are :
· What makes the violence in games so appealing to the young generation?
· What is the publics view on this subject?
· How does the public believe the violence in video games should be dealt with, should it be banned altogether or just cut down?
The main objective of this essay is to prove whether the researchers hypophasis is wrong or right.
Literature Review
Due to violence in video gaming, the amount of crimes and the level of aggressive behaviour has increased within the younger generation. However different studies have shown that this is not the case and violent games do not change the aggression levels at all. GrayBill (1987) showed through a study with sixth graders when using a violent game verses a non violent game the aggression levels didn’t change. This showed that violent games have no effect on the teenagers. However in a different study by Cooper and Mackie (1986) it showed the complete opposite when testing a violent game verses a non violent game using fifth grade girl. With this study it showed that when viewing a violent game that they showed different levels of aggression.
In more recent studies it has shown the same result as with Cooper and Mackie. Anderson and Bushman (2002) said that violent games promoted various forms of aggressive behaviour. However this was only an opinion and more proof would be needed to answer the question of if violent games were promoting aggressive behaviour in teenagers. Another study by Walsh (2000) showed that the reason behind teenagers and children having so many games is because of parents not being aware of the rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. This shows that parents do not know about how violent the games are. This suggests that the reason behind children playing violent games is due to the parents being made unaware of the content. Vince Mathews (2006) through a more recent study hesitated to make the statement that it is video game violence that is making teenagers more aggressive. However what he does believe is that by doing this study it should encourage parents to make sure to look more carefully at the type of games they let their children play.
“Based on our results, I think parents should be aware of the relationship between violent video-games playing and brain function” (Mathews 2006). This shows that games affect parts of the brain to release aggressive behaviour. The researcher believes that if parents were made more aware of how violent games can affect a child then maybe less children would be aloud to play them.
A valid point made by Gentile and Andrerson (2003) suggested that it is because of violent acts being repeated throughout the game the childrens aggressive behaviour is increased. However researcher Patrick Kierkegaard states that crime has decreased since the increase of popularity with violence games. “Violent crime, particularly among the young, have decreased dramatically since the early 1990s, while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use” (Kierkegaard). Similar findings were made by Christopher J Ferguson (2010) who mentions in an article that recent research has shown that in Europe and the United States they are having less behaviour problems in young people since video games have grown in popularity and violent games are not the problem with youth.
"Recent research has shown that as video games have become more popular, children in the United States and Europe are having fewer behavior problems, are less violent and score better on standardized tests. Violent video games have not created the generation of problem youth so often feared” (Ferguson 2010). So this shows that in his research it isn’t video games that are the problem with youth but the problem is the personalities of the teenagers. Through all of these findings the researchers results are inconclusive, because the facts show that since the increase in violent games, youths are less violent in the United States and Europe. However many other studies argue otherwise. He will use the research methodology to come to a conclusion.
Research Methodology
For this part of the essay the researcher has decided to use differing techniques which are both qualitative and quantitative methods. Wolcot (1994) wrote over fifety ways to dealing with data. One of which is surveys for quantitative methods, the researcher has decided to do this as part of his research. He will create a survey/questionnaire using closed questions, then make a pie chart to show the results. The researcher wants to do a minimum of ten results. For the qualitative part of the research he will do a focus group using an audio piece of equipment to record the speaking using open based questions. This will be an important part of the research as it will expand on peoples experience’s with violent games finding out their personal opinions and beliefs on the subject. Some of the most important questions to ask are :
· What makes violent games such as ‘Call of Duty’ so appealing?
· Do you think that gaming is destroying the youth of today, and if so how?
· In games such as ‘Grand Theft Auto’ you play the role of a criminal. Do you think that this encourages people to become these roles and if so how?
The researcher will use a group of students to get experiences from young people as it is based on the young generation. This will be really interesting to hear stories about how violent gaming have affected them and to generally see if they think that violent games should be banned. Then the researcher will listen back to the tape and type word for word the responses, afterwards noting down the most valid points recorded for the results.
Research Results
The researcher wanted to find out if people thought if it was being the role of a violent character is what makes gaming so appealing to the younger generation. He found out that 70% of the people I asked said yes. For the second question the researcher asked the public how many hours they think young people should play on their consoles a day. The results varied between 3-4 hours, 5-6 hours and 1-2 hours. Nobody said that it should be more than eight hours playing time as it is too much. Only 10% said young people should play between 5-6 hours however 70% said that it should be limited to 1-2 hours a day. 20% of the people asked said it should be 3-4 hours. For question three the researcher wanted find out if the public thought if parents should be made more aware about the content in games before letting them buy it. 90% of the people said yes leaving 10% saying no.
The researcher also asked what makes violent games so appealing giving the public eight options to choose from. He let them circle a maximum of three. The results varied, showing that most people thought that online play, characters, popularity and popularity was the main appeals. Surprisingly only one person said that blood was one of the appeals to violent gaming and three people said violence. The final question asked was if the public thought that games where you play a criminal inspire young people to go out and commit crimes. 80% of the public said yes leaving 20% of the public saying no.
Evaluation of Results
Due to the increase of violence in gaming the researcher wanted to find out if this increased the levels of aggressive behaviour in the younger generation. Through the research he wanted to find out if his hypothesis ‘Violence in video games is causing aggressive behaviour in the younger generation, therefore the violence in gaming should be banned’ was wrong or right.
Different studies have had varying results. Cooper and Mackie (1986) showed with a study using fifth grade girls that the violent games increased their levels of aggression. However Graybill (1987) showed with an earlier study using sixth graders with violent games that the aggressive behaviour levels didn’t change at all. In the personal research in the questionnaire he wanted to find out what made violent games so appealing. In fig.4 it shows that it was the online play and good story that made the games so popular as only three people said that it was the violence that was the appeal. In the focus group the researcher asked a similar question to find out the appeal of violent games. Applicant one says “I think it is more to do with online play because everyone can play together and get to shoot each other”. However Applicant two disagrees saying that it is the excitement of running around with a gun such as with children using toys to pretend to kill someone without actually doing it. So the results of this are that the appeal to violent gaming is the experience and the online play.
The researcher wanted to find out if the reason children have so many violent games is due to the parents buying for them being unaware of the content. A recent study by Walsh (2000) showed that the reason behind teengers and children having so many games is because of parents not being made aware of the rating by Entertainment Software Rating Board. A similar study was made by Vince Mattews (2006) who said that it should encourage parent to make sure to look more carefully at the type of games they let their children play. The researcher asked the public as to whether they think parents should be made more aware of the content in gaming or not. Fig 3 showed that 90% agreed that they should be made more aware showing that children would not have as many violent games if their parent knew about the violence in them. For the focus group a valid point was made around this subject by applicant two saying that parent just ask their children about the game and don’t even read the case. Matthews (2006) says that parents should be aware of how violent games can affect brain function. “Based on our results, I think parents should be aware of the relationship between violent video-games playing and brain function” (Mathews 2006). From this the researcher has concluded that parents should be made more aware of the content in gaming and stop their children playing it.
The questions raised around the violence in gaming is due to games such at ‘Grand Theft Auto’ where you play the role of a criminal where you can murder and steal. The researcher wanted to find out if games like this encourages people to take up these roles. Different studies have argued that gaming has decreased the amount of crimes and aggressive behaviour with young people. Patrick Kierkegaard stated that crimes has decreased while the popularity of gaming has increased. “Violent crime, particularly among the young, have decreased dramatically since the early 1990s, while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use” (Kierkegaard). Christopher J Ferguson (2010) made similar findings saying that recent research has shown that in Europe and the United States they are having less behaviour problems in young people since video games have grown in popularity. He states that violent games are the problem with youth. Through the private research the questionaires shows in Fig.5 that 80% of the public say games such as ‘Grand Theft Auto’ where you play a criminal is what inspires young people to go out and commit crimes. However through the focus group Applicant one states “It depends how you are brought up, I mean if you don’t have much attention from parents you are stuck inside playing violent games then you might grow up and think that it is OK to shoot somebody”.
Different tests have shown that it is violent games that increase the level of aggressive behaviour in the younger generation. Anderson and Bushman (2002) state that violent games promote various forms of aggressive behaviour. Gentile and Anderson suggested that it is because of violent acts being repeated throughout the game the childrens aggressive behaviour is increased. In the focus group Applicant two mentions that there have been people that have killed after playing a game such as when one man dressed up as the Joker and went on a killing spree. This shows that violent games does have an affect aggressive parts of the brain proving the hypothesis to be correct.
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