Parents and psychologists all over have been wondering for some time, "Does violence in video games lead to real-life violence?" Back in the 80's when games like Pac-man and Donkey Kong were first coming out, the video game industry had the defense of the video games being so unrealistic the gamers couldn't possibly take it out of the game to the real world. But look at the video games that are coming out today. The technology makes the games so much more realistic- the people, guns, and voices sound real. Real blood is seen spurting out of dying human bodies - the gore is actually unbearable for me. Yes, there is the same amount of violence on television as well that children are being exposed to, but often practicing an action teaches and conditions a child more to be a certain way than just watching it.
And the military actually uses video game simulations to help train for real life situations. If the military is using it for real life training- why wouldn't children start to become more violent as a result of shooting and killing hundreds of people on the screen?
Fox New wrote an article about the topic and I quote - "Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to observe how playing video games might affect the brain. The results indicated that boys who played violent video games experienced changes in regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control." But! It has not been proved the violent video games leads to real life violence or bullying. Bullying comes from a number of things like insecurity, because of home problems, to be in control or other issues. I do not believe that playing a game turns a child into a bully. I do believe that age-inappropriate games can affect a child if they are over exposed to cuss words, pornography or saying the word "kill", but that is another story. If anything violent video games can glorify bullying, but not cause it.
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