Similar to
many adolescents of modern American society, I spent a part of my youth playing
seemingly endless hours of popular video games such as Super Mario 64, Halo,
and StarCraft. I can attribute a lot of my spatial and critical thinking
skills to my prolonged exposure to these games during my adolescence. As an
aspiring physician, my hand-eye coordination and my ability to pay attention to fine details will be vital on a day-to-day basis. On the contrary, it is frightening to see some of the
correlations between aggressive behavior and video games; as a refresher to my
audience, the shooters behind the Columbine and movie theater incident in
Colorado were found to have been playing video games prior to the shootings.
Although I have surely reaped the benefits of video games, I frequently find
myself asking the following question: should the government place unavoidable
age restrictions on video games?
Laura
Stockdale, a professor at Loyola University Chicago, recently presented her
research at my weekly neuroscience seminar. Her findings suggest that
individuals who undergo prolonged exposure to video games express a decreased
level of physiological response to real life violence. Furthermore, she states
that this relationship is as strong as “the relationship between smoking and
lung cancer.” One can easily assume based on these two findings that
uncontrolled video game exposure should be worrisome; this lack of inhibitory
control can probably be correlated to the Columbine/theater incidents. Additionally,
parents need to consider the developmental effects that prolonged video game
exposure can leave on their child, especially beginning at an early age. One
can further infer that video game regulation should be further enforced; the
current ESRB ratings simply prevent an underage individual (less than 17 years
old) from purchasing a mature-rated game. However, what is stopping the
underage individual’s family or friends from simply buying it for him or her?
Given the
recent trend of crime rates in Chicago, I agree with society pointing fingers
at video games for being an underlying cause behind this violence. However, I find it rather inadequate
to declare video games as the prime source for the rise of violence; the nature of
the human mind is complex and many of our aggressive behaviors depend on a
summation of factors. In support of my view, Dr. Ward, a professor at the
University of Texas at Arlington, and two of his colleagues examined sales data
and crime rates across a range of communities. Interestingly, they found that “higher
rates of violent video game sales related to a decrease in crimes, especially
violent crimes.” Additionally, the number of violent youth offenders “fell by
more than half between 1994 and 2010… while video game sales have more than
doubled since 1996.” This data clearly suggests that video games may not be as detrimental to society as we currently envision them being.
The
underlying issue regarding video games is that the scientific research behind
it is conflicting, leaving society with no actual consensus for future action.
I personally believe that the most reasonable course of action includes placing
an age restriction on video games; with technology such as fingerprint scanners
being implemented in publicly available technology, video game console
developers should look to implement such technologies in the controllers. Doing
so would ensure that underage individuals would be playing games only as
restricted by the ESRB. Pushing console developers to implement such a
technology would be a daunting task, but a little encouragement (and funding)
from our government would push this in the right direction. Although many
underage individuals would probably be upset from such a dramatic change,
society would still reap the benefits of children playing video games while
avoiding many of the possible violent acts that may become associated with
video game exposure over time.
Edwin
Chaharbakhshi
Loyola University Chicago
Bioinformatics/Biology Undergraduate
Literature:
Cunningham,
Scott, Benjamin Engelstätter, and Michael Ward. Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent
Crime. Social Science Research Network. N.p., 5 Feb. 2013. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
Stockdale,
Laura. Associations between Violent
Video Gaming, Empathic Concern, and Prosocial Behavior toward Strangers,
Friends, and Family Members. PubMed.
National Institutes of Health, 4 May 2012. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
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