Do Video Games Spark Aggression Among Its Users? Essay

The question of the effect of video games among its users is one that is a crucial one and one that poses a challenge to all who understand it. There is information to suggest both ways and this paper seeks to exhaustively tackle the issue of the aggressiveness brought about by playing video games.

Brad Bushman, a professor at Ohio University believes that video games are not the major factor that actually sparks aggression that leads to killing sprees among users, but are certainly a contributing factor to the aggression. The highest population playing video games is the youth and paired with factors such as peer pressure, bullying and problems of parental negligence, individuals may just become violent. These people let out there frustrations by acting out scenes from their favorite video games where glory goes to the one responsible for the highest number of deaths.

Benedict Carey on the other hand, believes that games actually provide an avenue for potentially violent and aggressive individuals to channel out their frustrations. According to his research some studies show that playing video games reduces violence. I am of the opinion that Benedict Carey is an arrogant journalist and maybe actually a video player himself. His attitude portrays an image of a juvenile and somewhat rebellion. This changes my view on his points despite him stating that there is evidence that shows reduced levels of violence among the youth in states where video games are played frequently.

I concur with Brad Bushmans sentiments that video games actually cause aggression. Brad also comes across as a principled individual who understands his trade well. His points are well written and well explained and backed up by credible research. He states that there are actually different factors at play which may cause teenagers to be aggressive. It is however most likely that playing video games actually triggers violence among potentially violent individuals. These teenagers may have different underlying issues which may not have been addressed to find out the root of their aggression. Having played video games for over 5 years, I tend to think if something perturbing is bothering me, I would let out my frustrations violently just like in the video games. Video games make you feel like the only way to solve issues is through violence. The most aggressive individual is depicted as the best player and gets credit for actually harming others. In a real life situation, as children grow they will always have something to relate to or something they look up to. A person playing call of duty for instance will have a life or a city to defend and to a larger extent teenagers being who they are will always relate to those characters.

Benedict argues that teenagers playing video games are actually violent in the first place thats why they play the games. Violence is not an inborn thing and it is actually practical that its something learnt with time. You first have to play the video game and learn some aggression from it. I dont think those who become rapists do so out of watching pornography, they are actually rapists from the beginning. Hypothetically the society would want to have their children having a source of entertainment but they wouldnt want it affecting them negatively. It is therefore the societys role to ensure that video games ratings are beefed up to the extent that kids will only have access to minimal violence portrayed in the video games. Parents should also be well informed regarding the content of the video games they purchase for their children. Only then can the aggression issues be successfully rehabilitated and the underlying factors recognized.