Media and violence

Violent video games have become so realistic that the simulation of those violent acts have enhanced the learning of behaviors such as shooting, stabbing, the mutilation of someone with an ax, sword, chainsaw, or other weapons. When being so influenced by so much violence in these games, young people start loosing empathy and slowly having less kindness. This, could be leading to real-life violent behavior.

Researchers have shown that those with a higher trait of aggression will be more susceptible by the exposure to harmful effects of media violence than someone with a lower aggression trait. But not only does this affect those with an aggression trait, as around 98% of pediatricians in the United States have said being involved with (either playing or simply watching) violent media grows childhood aggression.

A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that 60% of middle school boys and 40% of middle school girls who played at least one M-rated game hit or beat up someone, compared with 39% of boys and 14% of girls who did not habitually play M-rated games. This found that there is a link between aggression, fighting and bullying with playing Mature-rated video games.

Various school mass shooters have been linked to playing violent video games previously. Games so violent have been proven to reduct emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence, as the peer-reviewed study of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology showed how just 20 minutes of playing a violent video game may cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence, making people more likely of committing a violent act. After being so influenced by violent events in those video games, young people have started having a harder time to differentiate fantasy from reality.