Recently, on the website PolicyMic. com, a article/blog was posted on February of this year entitled "Do Video Games make Teens more violent?" that highlights the news that can be found on BBC website says that "a new study from Canada's Brock University has found that playing violent video games for significant lengths of time can hold back the "moral maturity" of teenagers."
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Does violence on screen inspire violence in others?
Violence has been a type of entertainment for a
number of years; the attraction to it as entertainment varies immensely and in
some ways offers something for nearly everyone. People have always been interested
and intrigued in violence, it seems to attract almost everyone for a range of
different reasons; some are drawn to violence for the thrill and excitement
whilst others wish to see justice for the violence shown or carried
out. All throughout history there has been fascination linked with
violence and murder and all that implies, it has always been twisted and woven
into society. For example, in Paris during the sixteenth-century, one of
the most popular forms of entertainment at that time was cat burning, where a
cat was lifted within a sling up on stage and then slowly lowered into a
fire. Gladiators fighting to the death, beheadings, witch burnings and
hangings were common and a public sort of entertainment for many a year, as
were illustrated comics of murders being committed that were printed in
the newspapers. The nation then and now follow stories of murder and
violence, either fictional or not, with baited-breath.
It is not merely the violence and cruelty that may
interest many but the underlining fascination to understand why, and the need
to follow the proceedings and hope that justice prevails or an outcome is met.
People often want to have those responsible caught and dealt with, it shows
that we grow as people, that knowledge is gained, that the difference between
what was thought was good and what was thought was bad alters and shifts as the
years roll on. Displays of violence may cause some distress in the audience but
it is tremendously reduced when the bad character, when the murderer or the
violent, homicidal character, gets their comeuppance. The public/audience often
have very strong feelings when concerning protagonists and antagonists, then
deciding in moral terms what fate they deserve.
There is not a person or persons that are not in
some small way an audience and an eager consumer of violent imagery, we devour
violent images, news, films, games, Television shows, talk about them and read
about them, as the media and research behind this essay shows, we write
scientific articles about and around violence to try and make sense of it all. For
the younger generation, the fact that a certain topic, or some violent imagery
or violence in general, can be labelled as taboo is reason enough for interest
as this creates a rebellious thrill when they go against rules and regulations.
The curiosity for the forbidden is then fulfilled and they may even bond with
others by sharing their experiences, emotional or otherwise.
With violent entertainment presently, many still
hold some of the same thoughts on the matter, but have also come to view it as
an amusement, and to even yearn for it in some cases, although this does not
mean the public are overall bloodthirsty. The attractions of violent
entertainment are many and varied, appealing to men and women, young and old. Also
there are small amounts of people that demand violent behaviour and imagery in
their sources of entertainment, for a majority, the violence is a thing they
enjoy to see, inflict and dish out in a fantasy or imagined ending, but does
this mean those people are violent or prone to violence? Does it mean that somewhere
within oneself there is an urge to see violence or be violent?
According to a blog, which was written on 17th
January 2008, entitled "Humans crave
violence just like sex" research on mice showed that the brain
processed aggressive behaviour as it does rewards and that the mice tested
sought out violence and fought for no other reason than for the reward feeling.
The brain of a mouse is thought to be analogous to the human brain, which might
explain our fascination with violence, and in fact humans seem to crave
violence just like they do sex, food or drugs.
"Aggression occurs
among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important
resources such as mates, territory and food," said study team member Craig
Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University
in Tennessee. "We have found that the reward pathway in the brain becomes
engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved."
(Bryner, J.)
This can go to some way in explaining why violence
is sought after in entertainment and may go on to explain why some people are
more prone to actual violence than others. Watching a murder or a violent scene
is completely different than creating and being involved in one personally, but
the need and want for it, if albeit subdued, may be within everyone from birth
and can, in some small way, justify why people linger when there is a fight
nearby, watch violent films, read about murders and killings, and overall seek
out violent behaviour in some kind of macabre curiosity. Do violent games,
films or cartoons lead and enhance this somewhat dormant or downcast intrigue
in violence to actual, real life violence? This cannot truly be answered without
further study and the results may be inconclusive as people are wired
differently, some may be violent from the start and use different stages of
violence for an outlet, whilst others merely enjoy the thought of it but not
the actual action, there are also a range of to variables consider, how they
were brought up, for example, and if violence is the norm to them from the
beginning or not.
One of the most popular forms of violent entertainment
is centred on comedy and can be found within cartoons that aim to show the
hilarity and immortality of the cartoon characters on screen. Films,
cartoons and games can be filled with violence, but it is common knowledge that
it is all fake, people know the difference between what they see on the screen
and what happens in real life; there is still a morbid sort of interest with
real life cases of violence, but it is not trailed after as much, it is not
wanted, not to the degree that made up violence is. It might be true that
films, cartoons and games could have desensitised audiences somewhat, but it is
only to make-believe violence, if the violent imagery does not convey clues to
its unreality it loses its appeal. Take anyone who enjoys gory and
blood-thirsty horror films or violent video games and place them into the real
world of what they crave and they may not want nor like it, and may even shy
away from it. The whole point of a film, a cartoon or a game is to take the
audience into another world, into a fantasy, and let them enjoy what it has to
offer, whether it is realistic or not. People know it is not real and therefore
can sit back and appreciate the experiences and scenes that are being projected
at them. In addition, the same can be said about the creative ways of telling a
true story, as a lot of the said true stories are exaggerated, edited and
transformed to fit a certain target audience or to achieve more interest from
the public. One such example is that of a 1984 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street by Wes Craven, as this was actually based
on real events of people dying in their sleep but twisted and morphed to almost
ridiculous proportions of the made up child killer Freddy Krueger.
A book, film, cartoon or video game are there to
engross the public within an imaginary world which is probably one of the most
attractive features of entertainment media, and for a short time, a person can
become completely and utterly immersed in an activity. The bound into fictional
worlds, whether through literature, animation, film, television, video games or
sports, appeals to many on various levels, and this potential inheres in all
forms of entertainment. This goes in some way in explaining the tolerance for
the attraction of violent imagery. Experiencing things within groups or in the
safety of their surroundings can also increase the pleasure of any type of violent
material.
Therefore it can be that people like violence in
cartoons because they know it is not real, they can laugh and joke about it
without feeling guilty or ashamed in doing so. Animated violence is also a
great way of putting a point across in a discreet and tame manner; this was
shown in the NSPCC Cartoon by Frank Budgen & Russell Brooke. They took
a subject that was hard to talk about and showed it without causing distress,
and made it somewhat watchable by all ages, getting their message across
without showing the realistic violence, softening the impact with the cartoon
animation but still holding the same strong opinions on the matter at hand.
Slapstick, which was used within the NSPCC cartoon,
is just another popular form of violence that can be both light-hearted, which
is shown in some cartoons, or it can be realistic and bloody, like that which
is shown in films such as Jackass. From
a very early age, tragedy and violence/pain equals comedy when combined with
slapstick; it can be over the top and therefore seem less convincing and prone
to humour as a response.
Game violence is another type of entertainment that
is probably the most popular, and most talked about, as the game genre seems to
be growing at a rapid rate. One of the reasons it is sought after and enjoyed
could be because you, the player, are mostly in control of it all, are in
charge of the characters and most of the surroundings, and even if you, the
main character, are killed, it is not real, it is fictional, sometimes
happening to monsters or aliens rather than actual human beings, and you are
always offered another chance, whereas in real life, there are no other chances.
There is no tangible proof, none at all, that violence from video games makes
the players violent, and those who go out into the real world to re-enact the
violence are not sane people to begin with and the games, music or films merely
indulge their cravings.
Although, saying that, there has been countless
articles and forums on violent video games, one humorous article and/or blog,
that can be found on The Guardian
website, aimed at being a gag article entitled "Claims that 'video games lead to violence' lead to violence"
is written by a “casual gamer”
himself, as well as a doctor of neuroscience, Dean Burnett. He approaches the
idea that the gamers are angrier with the media than when playing video games.
Within the article, which seems to be aimed at the medias claims and responses
as well as those of overprotective parents, a made-up psychological researcher
at the Rapture Institute for headline-inspired science, Dr Mario Vance is
quoted saying,
"Recently, several
media sources focused on Aaron Alexis (the Washington naval yard gunman) and
his enthusiasm for Call of Duty as a cause for his brutal crimes. Because when
wondering what could have made a naval reservist, someone trained by the military
to engage in actions with the express intention of killing people, turn to
violence, the obvious conclusion is 'video games', apparently." (Burnett, D.)
"A bias is one thing,
but turning a brutal and deadly shooting into an excuse to attack a tenuously
linked entertainment medium? That borders on pathological." He also went on to
say, "The media's main concern appears to be that enthusiastic gamers
can't differentiate between games and the real world, so violent games will
result in violent behaviour. But anyone who has the cognitive faculties to
purchase, set up and operate modern games consoles won't have trouble
differentiating between a cartoonish fantasy world and reality." (Burnett, D.)
Though this is mostly all for laughs, it shows a
gamers reaction to the claims and how he responds and that he responds with
humour, not violence. It also hints on several good point and it contains a
very healthy debate in the comments section, showing a range of views from a
range of people who are or could be gamers themselves. One such person, on
September 20th, 2013, wrote one such comment explaining that it may
be true that some people are affected by certain stimulus, but that this could
be any kind of stimulus, not just video games. The man goes on to point out
that claims that fall on blaming other sources have no correlation between a
specific medium/title and someone who has bad mental problems.
Grand Theft Auto 4 sold over 3.6 million copies on
the first day of availability, and this number continued to rise. Does that
mean there were millions of violent people that did millions of killings and
violence as a result? Unless you count the fake violence in the game itself,
the answer to that is a resounding no, because virtually everyone who played,
and still continues to play, the game knows that it is just a game. There will
always be those who have a mental or emotional issue or disorder that are
triggered into violence, but the trigger can arise from anything and at
anytime. Although many of what is
written on the article in the blog is purely one man’s fictitious opinion, one
thing stands out above all else and that is,
"There has never
been any satisfactory scientific evidence for the association between video
games and violent behaviour." (Burnett, D.)
Concentrating further on Grand Theft Auto, The Grand Theft Auto series of games
are one of many violent oriented games that are the most popular, and within
their fifth instalment a depiction of torture was shown and played out, allowing
the player to choose how to better torture the victim to gather the relevant
information needed for the mission at hand. This sparked a lot of controversy
with many complaining about the violence shown, but was this scene over
stepping some line? Would and could this scene affect the players in such a way
that they themselves find torture a game and an amusement? A certain infamous
scene/mission in the video game Call of
Duty: Modern Warfare 2 entitled “No
Russian” which has a first person view of a part of the level that merely
consists of you and three others gunning down hundreds of innocent people in an
airport, has also been brought back into light because of this. Scenes and
missions like these can create an overall sense of shock as it engages the player
in a different way to what can be perceived to 'normal' video game violence.
Following the many years of gaming, a lot of people had become somewhat desensitised
to the usual run 'n' gun gameplay that we are all familiar with, but scenes
like the one in Call of Duty, and
some ways the one in Grand Theft Auto also,
stick out because they take that same kind of violence to what can be called insane
levels specifically to illicit that response. Even so, the violence is still
overall unrealistic and over the top, and in some cases, like the one with Grand Theft Auto especially, the
violence is sometimes over trodden with the backstory and the point of the
torture rather than the torture itself.
Recently, on the website PolicyMic. com, an
article/blog was posted on February of this year entitled, "Do Video Games make Teens more violent?"
that highlights the news that can be found on BBC website that says that ,
"a new study
from Canada's Brock University has found that playing violent video games for
significant lengths of time can hold back the "moral maturity" of
teenagers." (McKay, T.)
According to the researchers more than three hours
of video game play per day may hinder the development of empathy in teenagers.
One hundred students ranging from 13-14 years old were said to be tested and the
research apparently found that those who played less were unaffected, however,
the three hour a day mark was where a perceptible delay in learning “empathy, trust, and concern for others”
emerged.
"Spending too much
time within the virtual world of violence may prevent [gamers] from getting
involved in different positive social experiences in real life, and in
developing a positive sense of what is right and wrong." (McKay,
T.)
Conversely, the version of the study that was
published on the Brock University website went on to say that there was no
actual durable correlation between the time spent playing violent games and the
attitude toward real violence, but what exactly does this show and mean? Do
video games make people, teenagers especially, more violent? The answer is
resoundingly inconclusive. However, three hours of game play per day is
probably too much for a 13-14 year old to waste playing video games, violent or
not, and it could indeed indicate factors such as poor social development
because of the lack of actual human contact, but there is no proof of this as
of yet.
Another such blog, on The Telegraph website written by Tom Chivers, the assistant comment
editor on that site, wrote about if games cause violence and used the recent
and horrendous murder of Anne Maguire as a point at which to start on because
it turned out that the 15 year old killer played the video game Dark Souls. Chivers went on to say that
people are “keen to link violent games to
real-life violence,” (Chivers, T) remarking that for years the media and
the public have been eager to link killings or unstable people with violent
music, films or games, however the link between game violence and real violence
is highly disputed. Although there have been studies that might have shown a
momentary rise in aggression after playing violent video games, it has not been
shown yet that this translates into tangible violent behaviour. Chivers went on
to note that though video games are getting more popular during the decades,
actual violent conduct has evidently been decreasing and according to the “Crime figures” on The Telegraph site, those who have needed hospital treatment for
violent related occasions
“has halved, from 0.8 per 100 people to 0.4 per 100 people, in the last
11 years.” (Chivers, T) (Shute, J)
This does not rule out a link, nothing does, but
nothing suggests that there is one either, and if there were to be, it must be
quite weak as there is certainly no outstanding proof connected. A great number
of people play violent videos games; for instance, in the year 2012 there was
up to 550 murders in England and Wales, according to Chivers, and in the exact
same year in the United Kingdom, Call of
Duty: Black Ops sold about 2.6 million copies. If the game alone were the
only direct origin of murders, then the probability of any Call of Duty player of being a murderer would “be 0.02 per cent.” Chivers later wrote,
“The suggestion that violent video games are behind Britain's murder
problem is entirely ridiculous.” (Chivers, T)
In conclusion, violence is all around us, we see
it, hear about it, watch it, and play it, but this does not mean that being in
contact with such violent entertainment makes the person or persons violent. Though
there is no actual proof of violent games making those playing it violent
themselves, it is true that such games should be held back from those too young
to understand it, it is also bad form to play games with no human contact as
this could affect those that play in a dangerous and unhealthy way. There are
many mixed beliefs, opinions and results when concerning violence in
entertainment and it creating violence in others, but the overall theme is that
it is all entirely unfounded; there has not been a point, which has been made
out of complete fact, nothing has been or is proven. A great deal of people
watch violent films, play violent games, read violent stories, play ‘violent’
music, it is unhealthy and naïve to suggest that these perfectly normal habits
are in some way risk indicators for violence or murder.
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