The Effect of Violent Video Games on Behavior

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The video game industry is proving to be one of the fastest growing and influential to date. Video games have evolved within the past 15 years, from 8-bit cartridges to the Internet accessing hardware of today; so naturally, the consumers and their needs have also evolved. Society has slowly developed into a place where people have lives both off and online. Major titles such as ?the Sims? are based on the player actually living online, through characters that sleep, eat, work and partake in other kinds of recreation. Players become enthralled in a fantasy world that has little to no consequences for the choices they make. With video games becoming such a popular form of media, its consumers are forgetting one essential point; it?s just a video game that has no bearing on the real world. Some children no longer feel the urge to go out into the world and play with others their age.

Instead, they spend their time on-line playing popular first person shooters titles such as ?Halo? and ?Unreal?, both highly aggressive and violent games, against and usually with much a older crowd. To make matters worse, there is very little regulation on who is allowed online and how these people interact. A child may very well be playing one of these titles with a convict on death row located in any state in the nation, and sometimes in other countries around the world. This social interaction may very well be influencing America?s youth into considering certain kinds of unacceptable behavior as the norm.

In the most infamous of a number of crimes committed by individuals who were said to be fans of violent video games, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton,