School shootings, bullying, and violence are commonplace today, but what is causing all this madness? Violent video games are the cause of this lawlessness. Violent video games teach that violence is an acceptable conflict-solving strategy and an appropriate way to achieve one's goals. Violent video games influence the youth more than elders, which may lead to future violence. When blood is present in video games, there is a measurable increase in stimulated aggression. When adolescents view violence in video games they are more likely to become violent themselves. Several lines of evidence suggest that there is a link between exposure to violent video games and aggressive behavior allowing adolescents to believe school shootings, violence, and bullying are okay.
Gamers who play rated M (for mature) video games likely receive pleasure from causing pain in others. Just imagine a high school teenager picking on a younger adolescent and the bully is laughing and obviously not feeling any sympathy. This is the perfect example of what it looks like when a teenager is exposed to a lot of video game violence. Teenagers exposed to immense amounts of violence tend to have a "cold heart," which means they simply do not care what happens to the kids they harass. There are three major effects when playing violent video games: children may become less sensitive to the suffering and pain of others, children are more fearful of the society around them which makes them feel that they cannot trust anybody, and adolescents may be more likely to be hurtful towards other. Games like Grand Theft Auto have very strong language, also containing sexual elements, and obscene violence, which may influence the mind of an adolescent. Since the brain of an adolescent is still developing; they are still prone to making to making poor decisions, which may have influenced them by the violent video games that they play.
