Do video games encourage violent behavior?

Do video games encourage violent behaviors? This is a question that so many have asked themselves and parents fight about, if the games they allow their children to play drives them to a point where the commit acts of violence due to the correlation that they create between the video game and the real world. Craig Anderson and Henry Jenkins take opposing sides on the issue to state their views. Craig Anderson argues that yes video games do encourage violence and Henry Jenkins claims that video games don’t have anything to do with the violence in the real world.

            Craig Andrews states in his argument that he believes violence does spill over from the TV screen to gamers actions outside of the fantasy world by stating, “some field experiments have used behaviors such as biting, pinching, hitting, pushing, and pulling hair behaviors that were not modeled in the game. The fact that these aggressive behaviors occur in natural environments does not make them ‘normal’ play behavior, but it does increase the face validity.”(95) I think that this is true that maybe these specific forms of fighting does not come up in the game but I do notice that violence does come up in some games. Even the little kid games where they have to over come the bad witch or something they fight her tell she dies or they win. The amount of violence does vary as the games go through the age groups but doesn’t mean there isn’t violence in the little kid games.  These forms of aggression that he says kicking, biting and pushing I think that is normal kids play, they do it even if it isn’t involving a video game when they are engulfed in a game. I think once someone gets to the higher forms of violence and thinking about doing real harm then there is an issue, but hitting and biting that’s something siblings do to each other in a normal basis.

The last quote that he brings up is that “high levels of violent game exposure have been linked to delinquency, fighting at school and during free play periods, and violent criminal behaviors”(96) I find this funny since I know that to some they do have difficulty in separating reality from fantasy and do commit violent actions as a result of gaming, however this is like saying everyone that lives in poor neighborhoods will rob. I know that it may be a higher percentage of people that game and are violent as well as those that commit illegal actions in bad neighborhoods but there is always an exception. I don’t think that this applies to everyone and most people actually are not violent unless when gaming and violent only in the game.

Henry Jenkins argues that video games do not have as much influence on people to commit bad choices or be violent like many would like to believe and I agree with him. Jenkins states, “Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population”(99) This is important to note since everyone that thinks games cause people to be crooks and criminals needs to realize that their have been extreme cases where someone played a game and fell of the wagon, however for the most part people cant separate a game and life and don’t spin out of control after turning off the game. A good point that he brings up is that “young girls often build upon these representations of strong women warriors as a means of building up their self confidence in confronting challenges in their everyday lives”(100) I think that this is a good thing however I don’t know if it is good they are relying on a game to build their confidence. He states that, “Games enhance learning, players are active problem solvers, players search for newer, better solutions to problems and challenges. Almost 60 percent of frequent gamers play with friends.”(101-102) I think that this is important to break down the stereotype that games sit alone in a room, which causes them to break down.

In the end I agree more with Henry Jenkins, especially on something that he states saying “clearly more should be done to restrict advertising and marketing that targets young consumers with mature content, and to educate parents about the media choices they are facing. But parents need to share the responsibility for making decisions about what is appropriate for their children. “(100) I think that that quote really sums up the entire issue. The parents can blame the video game companies for producing violent games for their children, but in reality they are the ones that buy them the games. No one is forcing a child to get a game and the only way they can get it is if you buy it for them, so truth is watch what you buy them and stop complaining about it. A game is a game but if in the wrong hands it can take a whole new turn so be a parent and watch what your kids get a hold of.