Consider this scenario: A teenage boy just returned from his friend’s place after a playdate. When the boy’s parents ask him did they have a good time and what did they do together, the teenager smiles with a mischievous glint in his eyes and replies, “Yeah! Josh and I survived a zombie apocalypse, raided a strip mall, stole a Lamborghini, and bombed the Empire State Building!” Don’t panic just yet! The teenage boy didn’t become a juvenile delinquent, he’s obviously just talking about the video games “The Walking Dead” and “Grand Theft Auto” that he played at the friend’s house.
Yet, “violent video games cause violence” is the general pattern of logic that run in the mind of anyone who don’t have experience engaging in violent game play. In fact, “whenever there is a mass shooting in the United States, it doesn’t take long before pundits suggests violent video games might be to blame”(Casey). While many concerns regarding the physical and mental wellbeing caused by excess violent video games may exist, there is concrete evidence supporting how moderate virtual rough play offers the best environment for disposing negative emotions, teaching moral lessons by providing the opportunity to virtually explore the consequences of violence, and most importantly, breaking stereotypes about how this type of entertainment is toxic to a developing mind. However, violent video games largely sexualize women and portray female characters as sex objects.
Grownups have all been there, and kids aging from 13-19 are still in the sufferable process, because let’s face it: Being a teenager is hard! Teenage lives are burdened with nonstop exposure to academic loads, peer pressure, high expectations and unrealistic beauty standards. Fortunately, there are several methods to cope with teenage stress, such as listening to music, keeping a journal for documenting feelings, expressing emotions into artwork, and exercising. Exercise is the ultimate weapon for combating stress, especially in the long run. Regular exercise lowers your body’s stress hormones and release dopamine and endorphins, which are chemicals that improve your mood and act as natural painkillers. Similarly, violent video game play activates the medial forebrain pleasure circuit, sending bursts of happy hormones down the reward pathway. Additionally, any type of physical game, sport, or activity offers the chance at an inappropriate emotional response. However, by using coping mechanisms in a virtual environment, gamers can exert all of their negative emotions by chopping off the rivals’ heads and blowing out their brains, while not manually hurting anyone. Violent video games grant wishes of power and fame, allowing teenagers to explore and master what they take in as thrilling and realistic environments (but distinct from real life), and to relieve stress by working through irritation. This way, teenagers are given a sense of power and control, which boost their confidence in real life.
As teenage gamers investigate the outcomes of rough play in the virtual world of violent video games, they actuate sentiments of guilt that lead to increased moral sensitivity and prosocial behavior in reality.Although The Walking Dead occasionally powers players to utilize ad libbed weapons to fight off bizarre zombies, the game is basically about arranging bunch elements and settling on moral choices under pressure. In Staaby’s strict examinations class, understudies are presented to masterminds like Aristotle and Kant to ground them in the fundamental ideas of good way of thinking. When they have some hypothesis under their belts, they apply their insight into utilitarianism and the unmitigated basic to the moral predicaments standing up to a gathering of outsiders cooperating to get by in a zombie apocalypse.’The game is intuitive and reacts to player input,’ clarifies Staaby. ‘The decisions that you make influence the result of the story, and since the game presents the understudies with moral predicaments they have never experienced, it makes for substantially more important and drawing in conversations. They need to think of their own answers, as opposed to parrot what they’ve perused in the media or on the internet.’The Walking Dead furnishes understudies with a recreated social condition where they can practice hypothesis by and by, appreciating the office to settle on choices and ponder the outcomes of their activities. Also, many war-themed computer games permit or expect players to take the soldiers’ roles from various sides of a battle, making players increasingly mindful of the expenses of war.
The misconception about violent video games causing violence had existed ever since their creation and are still trending on now. The link between violent video games and increased aggression in prevalent, but that is only due to the constant rush of adrenaline during gaming, which would cause an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and aggressive behavior. This is similar to the state of people after physical exercise, yet it is only temporary, and will wear off in one to two hours. Also, violent video games are not a risk factor of youth violence. Engagement in violent video gaming is a way for teenagers to let out their negative emotions without harming anyone in real life. On the contrary, if there weren’t a virtual environment to exert anger, teenagers may take up destructive behaviors like drinking, smoking, doing drugs, self harm, or even hurt other people as to gain a sense of dominance. Also, bottled up emotions are what cause youth violence, not wrong influences from video games. When one first starts to hide their emotions, it’s not so bad. But the long term effect of bottled emotions is that one physically can’t contain them anymore, then they’ll burst out fiercer than before. And it won’t just be that one feeling, it will be everything else that’s been thrown on top of it since.
However, violent video games largely sexualize girls and portray female characters as sex objects. Video games that explicitly generalize women and present violence against women prompted a significant increase in hostile attitudes toward rape victims. This sort of violent interactive entertainment give teenage boys and girls wrong conceptions of how women are supposed to act and dress in order to accomplish tasks. A game called “Mortal Kombat” provides gamers with the choices of playing as a man with a full suit of defensive layer for assurance, or, a lady wearing scanty clothing, stilettos, and metal knee pads. All things considered, if both of these characters were to fight each other, it is almost certain that the man will defeat the lady, given his suit of armour. The scantily clothed lady is increasingly unprotected and is bound to be hit and afterward slaughtered immediately, therefore the man would win. This potentially teaches teenage boys and girls that males are always the champions, and the females’ priority is to be eye candy.
Fortunately, as a combined result of increased criticism on how female characters were being presented and greater interest among women in playing and developing video games in recent years, there has been a significant decrease in the sexualization of female characters.
Although falling under the “violent” category, violent video gaming is actually the magical portal through which teenagers can regain their positive vibes, obtain ethical awareness, and break stereotypes about the link between violent video games and youth violence. Despite the hyper sexualization of female characters, an increasing number of leading female role models and feminists are speaking up to make their voices be heard. With the current speed of improvement, game-based learning could become the leading educational method in the near future.
