Link between Violence in Video Games and Real-life Violence: Argumentative Essay

Sales of violent video games have significantly increased while violent juvenile crime rates have significantly decreased. Violent video games do not influence aggressive or violent actions in the real world.Sales of violent video games have significantly increased while violent juvenile crime rates have significantly decreased. Total US sales of video game hardware and software increased 204% from 1994 to 2014, reaching $13.1 billion in 2014, while violent crimes decreased 37% and murders by juveniles acting alone fell 76% in that same period. [133][134][135][136][82][83] The juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate in 2012 was 38% below 1980 levels and 63% below 1994, the peak year. [83] The number of high school students who had been in at least one physical fight decreased from 43% in 1991 to 25% in 2013, and student reports of criminal victimization at school dropped by more than half from 1995 to 2011. [107][106] An Aug. 2014 peer-reviewed study found that: 'Annual trends in video game sales for the past 33 years were unrelated to violent crime... Monthly sales of video games were related to concurrent decreases in aggravated assaults.' [84]

Studies claiming a causal link between video game violence and real-life violence are flawed. [34] Many studies failed to control for factors that contribute to children becoming violent, such as family history and mental health, plus most studies do not follow children over long periods of time. [95][10] Video game experiments often have people playing a game for as little as ten minutes, which is not representative of how games are played in real life. In many laboratory studies, especially those involving children, researchers must use artificial measures of violence and aggression that do not translate to real-world violence and aggression, such as whether someone would force another person to eat hot sauce or listen to unpleasant noises. [84][94] According to Christopher J. Ferguson, PhD, a psychology professor at Stetson University, 'matching video game conditions more carefully in experimental studies with how they are played in real life makes VVG's [violent video games] effects on aggression essentially vanish.' [95][96]

The US Supreme Court ruled that violent video games do not cause youth to act aggressively. In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011) the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that California could not ban the sale of violent video games to minors. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that studies purporting to show a connection between violent video games and harmful effects on children 'have been rejected by every court to consider them, and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively.' [81]

Playing violent video games does not cause kids to commit mass shootings. Over 150 million Americans (and 71% of teens) play video games. There have been 71 mass shootings between 1982 and Aug. 2015, seven of which (9.8%) involved shooters age 18 or younger. [87][91][92] Katherine Newman, PhD, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, wrote: 'Millions of young people play video games full of fistfights, blazing guns, and body slams... Yet only a minuscule fraction of the consumers become violent.' [86] A report by the US Secret Service and US Department of Education examined 37 incidents of targeted school violence between 1974 and 2000. Of the 41 attackers studied, 27% had an interest in violent movies, 24% in violent books, and 37% exhibited interest in their own violent writings, while only 12% showed interest in violent video games. The report did not find a relationship between playing violent video games and school shootings. [35] An Apr. 2015 peer-reviewed study published in Psychiatric Quarterly found that playing violent video games had no impact on hostility levels in teenagers. [123]

Violent video games allow players to release their stress and anger (catharsis) in the game, leading to less real world aggression. A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that children, especially boys, play video games as a means of managing their emotions: '61.9% of boys played to 'help me relax,' 47.8% because 'it helps me forget my problems,' and 45.4% because 'it helps me get my anger out.' [37] Researchers point to the cathartic effect of video games as a possible reason for why higher game sales have been associated with lower crime rates. [84] A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Adolescent Research concluded that 'Boys use games to experience fantasies of power and fame, to explore and master what they perceive as exciting and realistic environments (but distinct from real life), to work through angry feelings or relieve stress, and as social tools.'[36] The games serve as a substitute for rough-and-tumble play. [36]