The Official News Source of Weatherford High School and Home of Roo Student Media

WHS GrassBurr

The Official News Source of Weatherford High School and Home of Roo Student Media

WHS GrassBurr

The Official News Source of Weatherford High School and Home of Roo Student Media

WHS GrassBurr

Violence in Video Games?

Many people worry that society as a whole has become more violent and aggressive throughout the past few generations. Video games have become a common target as the culprit of this cultural change, but how true are these accusations? Do video games make students violent? Do the games hurt their mental state? Or do the games really influence anything at all?

 

Who would be better to answer these questions than students who have been directly affected by video games?

 

“There have always been murders and robbers, and all kinds of people that do bad stuff. So video games aren’t the cause of violence in general,” junior Carson Turk said.

 

Many students at WHS, who play video games on a regular basis, responded to a survey of questions in a similar manner. Most agreed that video games have not been a factor in terms of violence within their own lives.

 

“I have no desire to kill anyone in the real world. I have never played a game, gotten a kill in the game, and then thought to myself: I wish I could do that in real life,” Turk said.

 

Not everybody is a supporter of video games. Some think negatively about them, and that they are a burden upon society. Others are in the middle and aren’t positive if they influence the students at all.

 

“Kids can’t focus on school when all they think about is ‘what game am I going to play when I get home’, and they don’t pay any attention to class or school work,” junior Michael Markley said.

 

There is no denying that there is violence in modern society. If these students believe that video games are not the culprit, then what is?

 

“I think the media is the main perpetrator of making students violent. You constantly see the bad side of society and rarely ever focus on the good parts,” junior Ty Wynne said.

 

Many professionals have also addressed this issue.

 

“In an excellent overview of video game studies recently published in American Psychologist, author Christopher J. Ferguson of Texas A&M International University pointed out that many scholars working in the area of child violence added to the moral panic with studies that were often flawed,” Romeo Vitelli Ph.D. said on Psychology Today.

 

If some of the best scientists cannot make a connection between violence and video games, then how true can these accusations be? Is it possible that these violent acts would occur even if video games were taken out of the equation? Science cannot say, so it is up to us, as a society, to come to a conclusion.

Activate Search
Violence in Video Games?