Violence in Video Games - Does it train to kill Essay

Violence in Video Games - Does it train to kill - Essay Example For example, a nationwide conversation ensued regarding what connection video games had to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre where two students murdered 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves. While many motivations were likely involved, it is not possible to identify precisely what provoked these teenagers to shoot their classmates and teachers but violent video games have been mentioned as one possible contributing factor. The two students had often played Doom, a brutal and bloody firearms game that is used by the military to teach the U.S. armed forces how to kill more efficiently. To what degree this game influenced the actions of these two youths has been argued since this incident. The entertainment media, it is widely accepted, is an extremely influential factor in everyone’s lives. â€Å"What behaviors children and adults consider appropriate comes, in part, from the lessons we learn from television and the movies† (Huesmann & Miller, 1994). It is re asonable to expect video games, especially those that portray violence, will have similar and possibly a more expansive effect on violent behavior. Currently, few papers exist which have thoroughly studied the connection between violent video game and subsequent violent actions. As video games are progressively becoming more ferocious and explicit as well as more prevalent, additional research continues to suggest that violent video games have significant capability to affect the impressionable minds of the young people who play them and illuminate to parents the risks associated with these games. When video games first appeared about 30 years ago, they were simplistic and seemingly innocuous. Atari pioneered the video game with Pong in the mid-1970’s which was a video version of table tennis. The 1980’s saw arcade games such as Asteroids and Pac-Man become popular. â€Å"In Pac-Man, a yellow orb with a mouth raced around the screen chomping up ghosts and goblins. At this point,