Is Video Game Violence the Cause of Juvenile Delinquency?
Interactive video games and the Internet have become the entertainment of choice for America's adolescents. Nearly seven in ten homes with children now have a personal computer (68.2%), and 41% of homes with children have access to the Internet. Annual video game revenues in the United States exceed $10 billion, nearly double the amount of money Americans spend going to the movies. On average, American children who have home video game machines play with them about 90 minutes a day.
The impact of video games containing violence has recently become a focus of research because children are theoretically more susceptible to behavioral influences when they are active participants than when they are observers. To date, violent video games have not been studied as extensively as violent television or movies. The number of studies investigating the impact of such games on youth aggression is small, there have been none on serious violence, and none has been longitudinal.
Many studies about video games have been conducted. A number of studies are conducted by splitting a certain number of people into two groups, one group playing violent games, and the other playing non-violent games. Shortly after the allotted time of play, the subjects' aggressive thoughts are measured. Almost always, the people who played the violent games had a much larger amount of aggressive thoughts than the people who played non-violent games.
We live in a world where real violence is everywhere, from neighborhood shootings to the war in Iraq. We're mostly helpless to stop it, and we just have to live through it, but when a juvenile turns on a violent video game and spends endless hours playing does it change their perception of the real world and cause them to become delinquent.
Many things can cause an inability to distinguish right from wrong, reality from fiction. A teen may be mentally unstable, too immature (not just in age, but in reasoning) to understand the magnitude of their actions
The impact of video games containing violence has recently become a focus of research because children are theoretically more susceptible to behavioral influences when they are active participants than when they are observers. To date, violent video games have not been studied as extensively as violent television or movies. The number of studies investigating the impact of such games on youth aggression is small, there have been none on serious violence, and none has been longitudinal.
Many studies about video games have been conducted. A number of studies are conducted by splitting a certain number of people into two groups, one group playing violent games, and the other playing non-violent games. Shortly after the allotted time of play, the subjects' aggressive thoughts are measured. Almost always, the people who played the violent games had a much larger amount of aggressive thoughts than the people who played non-violent games.
We live in a world where real violence is everywhere, from neighborhood shootings to the war in Iraq. We're mostly helpless to stop it, and we just have to live through it, but when a juvenile turns on a violent video game and spends endless hours playing does it change their perception of the real world and cause them to become delinquent.
Many things can cause an inability to distinguish right from wrong, reality from fiction. A teen may be mentally unstable, too immature (not just in age, but in reasoning) to understand the magnitude of their actions
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