Video games cause violence

Hello again. Your argument thus far is simple: Violent crimes have gone down while video game sales have gone up, showing an apparent inverse correlation of these two statistics. My counterargument, too, is simple: The apparent inverse correlation of these two statistics mask the causation that is actually there is some cases. Your statistics, at best, show that the spread of video games has not increased the number of violent crimes. This is a fair point (though I would point out that there were MANY other factors at play in contributing to the violent crime rate's decline) but my case does not contend that the spread of video games increase the number of violent crimes, but that they do indeed influence the lives of players and that they can and do at least partially cause violence. I will focus on HOW video games cause violence as well as reference incidents of publicized, mass shootings in which video games clearly played a role. First of all, video games are addictive. A study and discussion by the American Medical Association discussed the fact that video game addiction (VGA) was a real and prominent issue in the health of many Americans. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott said that those who suffered from VGA created a separate world from reality, extremely similar to that of drug users. He elaborated that if there were conflicts in this world or if the addict became without his game, they could suffer from withdrawal or depression. These users become distant from their families and from the real world, which can lead to other mental health issues. As stated by the U. S. 's Department of Human Services, "Psychopathology, substance abuse, poverty, cultural factors, anger, stress, and depression often are thought to cause domestic violence. While there is little empirical evidence that these factors are direct causes of domestic violence, research suggests that they can affect its severity, frequency, and the nature of the perpetrator's abusive behavior. " So, to summarize my first case, my argument is that "Video games > Video game addiction > stress, depression, and mental health issues > domestic violence. ". Still, this is just one way that video games are detrimental to relationships and cause violence. This increase in severity and frequency of domestic violence is not show in your original argument's statistics, as the number of violent crimes would not increase just because their severity and frequency increased within isolated incidents. . http://serendip.brynmawr.edu...https://www.childwelfare.gov...On the subject of violent video games, I will argue that violence in games normalizes violence in real life and teaches children, teenagers, and adults the basics of shooting. For example, the U. S. Military has used and even helped develop games that simulate warfare in order to acclimate soldiers to violence and help them become more ready to pull the trigger. Soldiers interviewed by the Washington Post say that the games help them feel more normal while fighting, and that to them, shooting and killing even felt like a game after all of their years of playing. My argument here is that teaching people to be killers, as the games have obviously done, as attested to by U. S. Army soldiers, will make violent crimes with weapons more severe. The people that do play these games and then become violent will have virtual practice with weapons, and thus they will be more effective and in turn do more damage. This may not be the direct cause of violence, but it could indeed be a secondary cause. What if someone was contemplating violence, but they were unsure that they would be able to effectively harm anyone, thus making their attempt at violence useless? With video games, they are allowed to practice violence BEFORE they attack anyone, thus building their confidence that violence will be successful and convincing them to try it. . http://www.washingtonpost.com...Lastly, I will provide specific examples of cases in which video games were at least a contributing cause of violence: Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, was an addict of both violent and nonviolent games. Data taken by a GPS device his mother had given him showed him playing Dance Dance Revolution for long periods of time on weekends. He played between 4 and 10 hours a day on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Other video games, including the notorious Call of Duty games, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and Splinter Cell games have all been found at his home. Many news outlets have speculated that video games could have created a rift between himself and the real world, and maybe even outright trained him to believe that killing was normal. In Vietnam, a 13 year old boy murdered and robbed an 81 year old woman. He said that he needed the money to fuel his addiction to online games. Back in the States, A Jacksonvillian woman pleaded guilty to shaking her baby to death, a second degree murder charge. She told investigators that it was because the baby would not stop crying, interrupting her addiction to Farmville, the game she was playing at the time. An Ohio teen, Daniel Petric, shot and killed his mother and shot and wounded his father because they took away his copy of Halo 3, thus interrupting his video game addiction. The judge said that he "firmly [believed] that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever. " It is a common element in violent video games for characters to "respawn" after dying. Another Vietnamese teenager murdered a 7 year old girl by bashing her head in with a rock. Police say he planned to kill the girl while they were picking fruit, stealing her gold ear rings to pay for computer games. There are at least 10 deaths that have occured because infants and small children have been left unattended for extended periods of time in heat or without food/water while the parent played addictive video games like World of Warcraft. It is not my argument that these deaths have been violent deaths, and thusly they are not direct examples of video games causing violence. Rather, they are examples of how extreme video game addiction can become, which could easily lead to violence. . http://kotaku.com...http://www.news.com.au...http://jacksonville.com...http://news.softpedia.com...http://www.cbsnews.com...In summary, it is my argument that video games are addictive and destructive. I have presented examples of how this addiction can become destructive, of how it can lead to stress, anger, and domestic violence, of how it leads to irrational violence by those who are desperate to continue their addiction. I have presented an example of how it allows soldiers to normalize and prepare for violent war, and provided a hypothetical of how this could affect civilian people. Video games are AT LEAST a secondary cause of violence. Video games make violence that does occur more severe and makes those who commit it more effective. They are detrimental to society and they CAN cause violence. That will conclude my opening argument.