Literature Review

(Video Games and Violence)

There are a lot of issues and arguments surrounding the issue of the relationship between violence in society and the effect that computer games have on this matter.

Over recent years, there has been a lot in the media regarding teenagers and children being able to play computer games with too much violence in them. It has been researched in Florida, USA that if a young person plays a violent video game, they show signs of more aggressive behaviour. Kevin Keiffer was one of the researchers on this experiment and he has said that children who played a violent game “tend to imitate the moves that they just acted out in the game they played”.

“There is little doubt that video games with violent themes have been extremely popular with youngsters” (Gunter, 1998) Gunter seems to think that the most violent games out on the shelf are the games which people will choose to buy first, he hasn’t proved or disproved this. But in an article from the Times Online, Ainsley Newson has found that this is, in fact true.

On the other hand, Professor Mark Griffiths has spoken recently saying “There is no definitive proof or research to show that violent video games, make adults behave any more violently” so it seems that the opinion is unanimously decided that the video games effect the younger generation as they tend to act out the things they see on the screen and in-game.

References

Books

Gunter, Barrie. 1998 The Effects of Video Games on Children: The Myth Unmasked


Websites

Newson, Ainsley. 2005 “Children ‘made more aggressive by video games’”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article557091.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Barnett, Emma. 2009 “Modern Warfare 2: ‘No link between video games and adult violence’”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6536966/Modern-Warfare-2-No-link-between-video-games-and-adult-violence.html