How Does Video Game Violence Relate to Violence in Reality?
With every action there is a cause and effect; when a child acts out in a violent manner, people usually look back and try to find out what provoked this response. Did the child learn it from home? Do they hang around a bad crowd? Probably the most common response is - they learn it from media. More specifically- video games and fantasy violence. This is a frequent theory adults have on where children and teens get their violent tendencies, but as any other accepted stereotype, it isn't entirely true. Statistics on the increasing exposure of violence in media and juvenile violence in the real world prove this prevalent assumption fictitious. Also, an expert on the effect of violent video games on children, supports the Self Determination Theory and its relevance in video games. Another standpoint worthy of reviewing is the indispensable verity that individuals respond differently to their experiences, and can either learn from, or exemplify them.
A rather recent event that has happened in our country is the Navy Yard Shooting. This incident has stirred up the nation; all over the internet and the news, people are psychoanalyzing the shooter and trying to interpret his behavior, background, hobbies, trying to find signs of why he did this - mental illness, a habit of violence, a passion for video games that have mature themes of violence and shooting, and how accessible weapons and guns were for him. Occurrences such as this always brings up the topics of gun control and violent video games, causing people to blame video games as the culprit. Some believe first-person-shooter games glorifies shooting masses in a simulation that teaches player to seek out and destroy without consequence; numbing them to the horror of killing,