Violence and Addiction

As we know, gun laws in America are being reviewed because of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and others previous. As a result of previous media hype saying that video games are causing real life violence, politicians are now blaming video games too. Politicians opinions are then being used by the media to target the video games even more. It can only grow and strengthen gamer stereotypes. The more the media talk about it, the more people will agree and help the media to emphasise it further.

This same problem is also happening with the idea of video games being addictive. Cases of people, such as those dying as a result of gaming too much are helping the media to hype up the idea that games are addictive. As a result, people who enjoy video games and choose to play them a lot are wrongly being labelled as addicted because of the media labelling games as addictive.

The problem with accusations of violence and addiction is that people are ignoring the fact that parents are the ones meant to control their children’s gaming. The games that supposedly cause violence are not even for ‘vulnerable children’. They are for the average gamer who is not even a child. Adult rated games that children shouldn’t be playing in the first place. The public is trying to defend people who generally, are not even the ones playing them. You could almost compare it to parents blaming the pornography industry for glorifying sex and giving children access to it. Instead of blaming game companies, perhaps parents should be blaming themselves for letting their children play them and not controlling how long they play them for. Many are also ignoring the underlying problems in the cases of the people that are shown to show extreme behaviour. They already have a predisposition for violence and addiction.

If games were really that influential, why are there not more cases of violence and addiction being publicised? With millions of gamers worldwide, why is the general gaming population not displaying the same extreme behaviour?