Don't Worry About Those That Play Video Games, Be Cautious of Those Who Don't Play

1953 words 8 pages
Humankind is not perfect, far from it, which is readily evident in excessively common acts of violence. The methods by which violence may be cured, have been hotly debated, each method being a polar opposite of the other. Desensitization is the belief that watching violence in any form of media will lead to violent acts as the viewer becomes numb to horrors of violence. Desensitization leads people to believe that negative images or ideas not limited to that of only violence but as well as sexuality or profane language must be limited and regulated to prevent people from performing illegal or immoral acts. On the other end of the spectrum is the theory of catharsis, first introduced by the prodigious Greek philosopher Aristotle, which puts …show more content…

One must understand that this was a controlled experiment, and not a study of the real world. In an article posted by PBS entitled, “Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked” by MIT professor Henry Jenkins refutes the results of this experiment and many similar to it as inconclusive.
Most of those studies are inconclusive and many have been criticized on methodological grounds. In these studies, media images are removed from any narrative context…Finally, the laboratory context is radically different from the environments where games would normally be played. Most studies found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment… If there is a consensus emerging around this research, it is that violent video games may be one risk factor – when coupled with other more immediate, real-world influences — which can contribute to anti-social behavior. But no research has found that video games are a primary factor or that violent video game play could turn an otherwise normal person into a killer.
There has yet to be research proving the desensitization occurs. It is possible that people that are already predisposed to violence may use video games as a tool, or other violent images to conduct violent acts, but these are people that would have likely done so regardless. Playing video games is a valuable way to quell the anger growing inside much

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