Bulk of Essay (Not Finished, will be updated tomos)

Do violent video games have an effect on gamers and do playing video games affect their learning?

This is the question that will be answered either correctly or wrongly on both sides, starting with the first part ‘Do violent video games have an effect on gamers?’ There’s always a wonder if violent acts and crimes are caused more by the violent contents and images that playing violent video games put out. In some games today, the player can walk out in a virtual world and pull out a gun and kill the first person the player see’s or steal a car that takes the player’s liking, the player knows that they can do this and get away with it because after all it’s only just a game, but what if the player takes these sort of images that the player is seeing and uses what they see in the real world?

Gee (2003) says in a section of his book “When people learn to play video games, they are learning a new literacy.” Gee isn’t talking about the kind of literacy such as reading and writing, instead he’s talking about the ‘visual literacy’ which involves such things like images, symbols, graphs, diagrams and etc, this kind of literacy allows us to ‘read’ the images off an advert, for example, when you see a advert advertising chocolate, you know that the advert is about food and not about an animal. So for a violent video game where the images are that of killing, stealing and taking drugs, what’s to stop players thinking that if it’s easy to do in the game, why not do it in real life? A question like this, even for a young player where information soaks into the brain like a sponge, could lead to crimes and violent acts in the future or even at the current age.

To find out if violent video games really do increase aggressive behaviour, Anderson and Dill (2000) conducted a study of 210 participants which involved them playing two games for 15 minutes and then filling out a questionnaire, they also measured the strength of the sound that the participants did towards their opponents, the two games that were involved in this study was ‘Myst’ (A non-violent game) and ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ (A violent game). The results they gathered from the study showed that the people who played ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ and lost emitted a louder sound then those who played ‘Myst’, they also found out that violent games underpin aggressive thoughts and that the men was most aggressive. All the results they gathered helped support their conclusion that players of violent computer games exhibit more violent behaviour in the real world. So there’s no doubt about it, playing violent video games really does increase violent behaviour within the real world, but right now you’re probably thinking that they only played the games for 15 minutes and so really doesn’t prove that violent video games cause violent acts of crime.

That’s where an article from Layton (2008) on the internet helps back this up, in her article she talks about an event that happened at a High School in Colorado in 1999, two students opened fire within the school shooting 20 people and killing 13, a teacher’s wife who’s husband was among the dead filed a lawsuit. The media revealed that the two students played a lot of violent video games such as ‘Mortal Kombat’, ‘Doom’ and ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ and had also watched a violent film before doing their violent act called ‘The Basketball Diaries’ which involved a character using a shotgun to kill students at his High School. So after being pumped up from playing the violent video games and having the images of shooting and killing from both the games and film, this could of helped with the provoke of their criminal act in the High School, maybe such a thing wouldn’t of happened if parents are more strict on the age restriction on the front of the video games and films.

Literature Review

Literature Review

Gee (2003) states “When people learn to play video games, they are learning a new literacy” but not the type of literacy that involves reading and writing, Gee (2003) describes that it’s also about the ‘Visual Literacy’ which involves how people ‘read’ images, symbols, graphs and diagrams. When it comes to violent video games where the images are that of killing and stealing cars, young people to teenagers playing the game could be in a way ‘brainwashed’ into thinking that you can do this in real life and get away with it. This can be backed up from Layton’s (2008) article where she talks about an event where two students opened fire in their High School in 1999 shooting at 20 people and killing 13. A teacher’s wife filed a lawsuit and found out that the students played a lot of violent video games from ‘Doom’ to ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ and also watched ‘The Basketball Diaries’ where a character uses a shotgun to kill students at his high school. With the violent images coming from the games and the film to influence the student’s doings, it seems that the brain was stimulated to do this violent event. Anderson and Dill (2000) conducted a study using different methods to find out about aggression and violent video games, in one of their studies which involved the participants to play ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ for 15 minutes, they said ‘players of violent computer games exhibit more violent behaviour in the real world’, this could be one of the many reasons why the events happened from Layton’s (2008) article.

References


Gee, P. 2003 "What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy" Palgrave Macmillan

Layton, J. 2008 "Do violent video games lead to real violence?" [Internet] http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/video-game-violence.htm

Nielsen, S. 2003 "Playing With Fire - How do computer games affect the player?" [Internet] http://resources.eun.org/insafe/datorspel_Playing_with.pdf