Video games have always been on the front line of attack when violence is mentioned. Video games have proven to be influencial to certain degrees but cannot be proven to influence people so much as to murder or perform illegal actions. Evidence that needs to be looked at are cases such as Bjorkqvist’s (1985) look at children where he showed that 5 to 6 year olds that watched violent media showed more aggression together then children who didn’t. Andersons, Douglas and Katherine’s (2007) information about the realease of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 however shows that games didn’t really begging to emerge after and may not be the route of modern day children’s behaviour. It is hard to ignore that games may have some influence however as Pratchett (2005) found that 100% of 6 to 10 year olds and 97% of 11 to 15 year olds played games occasonally meaning that there actions could indeed be effected by the media. This works with Buchman and Funk’s (1996) research that showed that violence was in 73% of boys favourite games and 59% of girls.
Hypothesis
People and the media normally look at games when violence occurs (more frequently with children) and try's to pass the blame onto video games. Games are nothing more then interactive films and have no more violence in them then some of today's most popular blockbuster titles.
Refferences
Kent, D. A. (2001). The ultimate history of video games. Roseville, Calif.: Prima publishing page 465
Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile and Katherine E. Buckley (2007) Violent video game effects on children and adolescents
Funk, J. B. (1993) Reevaluating the impact of video games. Clinical Pediatrics 32, 86 – 90
Bjorkqvist K (1985) Violent films, anxiety and aggression. Helsinki: Finnish society of sciences and letters.
Pratchett, R. (2005) gamers in the uk: Digital play, digital lifestyles. London BBC http://open.bbc.co.uk/newmediaresearch/2006/01/bbc_uk_games_research.html
Buchman, D. D. and Funk J. B. (1996) video and computer games in the 90’s: Children’s time commitment and game preferences.
As a late note I also researched violence in games for my A-level media course and performed several experiments. if I can locate these could I use some of this as my own primary evidence or would it be considered cheating?
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