Video Game Violence and Addiction

Lots of the games played on the play-station have some sort of violence in them, most the time this violence does not effect the player, but occasionally it goes a bit to far.

• What are some examples of violent video games?
• Why do people prefer violent games to non violent?
• What are some problems caused by extreme violence in video games?
• What Further action can the government take to regulate the use of violent video games?

Grand Theft Auto Series: Intense violence, sexual content,
drug use, strong language, strong sexual themes, car jacking and a negative portrayal of ethnic groups.

Mortal Kombat Series: Extreme graphic violence and gore
while fighting your opponent.

Final Fantasy Series: Extreme graphic violence and
language.

Experts say that people play violent games to help with stress, anger or something bad, sad, emotional happening in their lives at that moment. Others try out a game and get addicted. People have been researching why these games are so addictive and results vary.

A certain test was done where a brain scan was done on non violent game players and violent game players. Results are below.

It has been found that violent video games arouses part of the brain connected to emotions and impulses

Violent computer games arouse more impulsive parts of the brain than non-violent games, an American study has found.

The study followed 44 teenagers aged between 13 and 17 without any history of behavioral problems. It found that playing violent games increases the activity of amygdala, neurons in the human brain connected to emotions and impulses.

Researchers are now asking whether this activity can lead to permanent changes in behavior.

• In 2005, a 4 month old child died after being left at home while her parents went to an internet café to play world of warcraft for 5 hours
• Again that year, a man died after playing a computer game 50 hours straight
• A man once got arrested for selling a virtual weapon he won in a video game

Video game violence affects people in different ways. Since children have played these games since a young age, they won’t know the difference between reality and fantasy, which could lead to big social problems in the future.

New Zealand has a law against most video games that have extreme violence in them.

“For the purposes of this Act, a publication is objectionable if it describes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good.”

A detox center in the Netherlands have begun a video gamers anomynous in hope that it will help addicts with their problems. It has been proven successful.

This subject was tough to research. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find any books on it, but I did find loads of websites.