Video games make people violent
Nowadays, the idea that video games make people Violent is widespread among a large part of the population. In this article, I will demonstrate that this is just a received idea.
This idea is often shared by politicians after dramatic events. For example, after massacres in El Paso and Dayton, in the United States, Donald Trump said: “We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.” These critics are sometimes justified by terrorists as Anders Brevik or Brenton Tarrant who claim to have practised on First Personal Shooter games. But saying that there are some Gamers among all psychopaths is not a proof to demonstrate that video games make people violent.
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Some studies have shown that gamers tend to be more aggressive within 20 minutes of playing video games. But this phenomenon is not specific to video games. It is not the violence represented which makes players aggressive but the frustration due to the difficulty of the activity. So, video games make people aggressive, like every type of games (board games, role-playing games, etc), and this aggressiveness is temporary.
On the other hand, there are many positive aspects of playing video games. A controlled regular Practice enables players to slightly increase their coordination, reflexes and their social, emotional and commercial skills.
After an MRI scan on regular gamers, scientists saw a rise in grey cells in the right hippocampus, in the cerebral cortex, and in the cerebellum.
In a 2013 report, the French Academy of Sciences recommends educating the children from 2 years old to a rational use of virtual support. In 2014, a study showed that young people practising video games for 1 hour a day develop better social and emotional skills than those who never play.
So, in the medical point of view, it is not possible to say there are only negative aspects of this practice.
Finally, for some people, video games could allow to overpass their fear. After the dramatic attack at the Bataclan, in Paris, in 2015, some survivors said that video games helped them to rebuild their lives.
If the rational practice of video games can be good, overstay behind a screen can lead to cyber dependence. Stay day and night motionless can be very dangerous for health. This is why the World Health Organization recognizes Gaming Disorder in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases.
To conclude, we see that there are more beneficial aspects of video games than negative ones and that the problems due to video games appear with an irrational practice.
Then, we can wonder if justify the number of murders by the practice of video games taking place in violent universes is not a political tool to protect the well-known lobbies of firearms selling in countries which are authorizing this custom.
