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Series Part 2: Are Video Games Responsible For Violence?

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 11:33 am
by penix
http://www.foxrio2.com/76129/series-par ... -violence/

Series Part 2: Are Video Games Responsible For Violence?
Published February 7, 2013 @ 10:46 pm

The debate over what we consume influencing our behavior has become at least for younger generations age old but as a burger can make you gain weight and a beer can cause intoxication, does watching a violent TV show, movie or playing a violent video game, make you more violent?

As we’ve seen there is yet to arise a conclusive study to show a connection, but one thing’s for sure over 14M people played call of duty last year and the video game consumption rate versus violent gun crime doesn’t line up, yet the debates linger.

A non debatable fact, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut as a small town and a sorrowful country searched for answers.

It didn’t take long before video games came into the picture, he spent hours in his mothers basement playing video games, one in particular, a very popular one called “Call of Duty” a first person shooter its most recent version selling over 11M copies globally in its first week and solidifying its status as the best selling video game franchise of all time.

So by no means was Adam Lanza alone in his violent video game playing.

Joined by millions more, seemingly non violent individuals.

Meet Cruz Cardenas, a Freshman Pre-Med Student at U.T.P.A., valedictorian of his high school and he plays “Call of Duty”, him along with millions of other seemingly stable young individuals, he sees the case against video games as irresponsible.

But what makes young men like Adam Lanza and Cruz Cardenas, their only link being a violent video game, react so differently in this world as is often the case with major topics like video game violence.

The debate creates a Venn Diagram of sorts, leading to other issues like upbringing and parenting as we discussed earlier to the ever evolving world of mental health.

Professor Fred Ernst is program coordinator at U.T.P.A. and sees no single deciding factor in what causes violent behavior

The truth is there will never be a satisfactory answer to the causes of violent behavior.

Only through a better understanding of how the human mind functions and responds can we reach out to the troubled among us and prevent a game from becoming a reality.

As President Barack Obama calls for more research to be done into the effects of video games on young minds perhaps a link will emerge but regardless, as video game consumption grows and we continue to search for answers to violence in the real world, the debate over video game violence shows no sign of having its plug pulled anytime soon.

We hope you enjoyed this special FOX 2 series.