Letter to the Editor: Shooting in the Dark
July 22, 2013
Mr. Benedict Carey
Xxx Street
City, State Zip
Dear Mr. Carey:
I am writing in regard to your article on “Shooting in the Dark.” Addressing youth violent activities and crimes to your readers was a very wise topic to discuss; not many Americans are aware about this perspective. Youth crimes are much more evident now than they were in previous years, seventy years ago for an example. I applaud you, Mr. Carey, for tackling this controversial subject on violent videogames. However, I do not support most of your claims. I find certain claims in the article to be somewhat narrow-minded and containing fallacies; can experiments capture the essences of the mind of young adults and prove that videogame might truly be the cause of their violent or aggressive behavior? I discover this to be a straw man outlook instead of a much broader viewpoint on the situation with violent behaviors. Videogames are unlikely to be the main cause of these behaviors for many reasons, natural and situational stimuli, emotional and mental complications, and the benefits of games.
Referring to your statement, “playing the games can and does stir hostile urges and mildly aggressive behavior in the short term,” how can this be so nonetheless? (Carey 1). Later on in the article, psychologist, Christopher Barlett, conducted a fifteen-minute experiment on forty-seven Iowa State University undergraduates playing Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. After this session, they were calculated for their physical and psychological behavior; the results showed an increase in aggressiveness. Doesn’t this just sound like a case of an adrenaline rush that might seem to appear identical to aggression Mr. Carey? This natural stimuli, adrenaline, occurs within any type of competitive games or activities. Our body produces adrenaline when we become excited in a rigorous way. Mortal
Kombat: D.A. is a very intense, fast paced, competitive game. Anyone’s heart would start pumping while trying to beat an opponent and also while trying not to lose. In this comment, “a dose of violent gaming makes people act a little more rudely than they would otherwise, at least for a few minutes after playing,” still referring to Mortal Kombat: D.A., maybe they acted “rudely” because they lost the fight? (1). This example was not thoroughly explained. However, if this is true, then aggression has no relationship to this example; instead, it’s anger from their personal issues more than videogames in general. When it comes to difficult, strenuous, undesired situations, people have a tendency to respond with aggressions or sometimes violent actions from anger.
The next experiment stated that “It also tested whether the students would behave more aggressively, by having them dole out hot sauce to a fellow student who, they were told, did not like spicy food but had to swallow the sauce...sure enough, compared with a group who had played a nonviolent video game, those who had been engaged in “Mortal Kombat” were more aggressive across the board. They gave their fellow students significantly bigger portions of the hot sauce” (1). I found this to be an irrelevant, weak analogy to the subject of aggression with videogames; both groups unevenly gave out hot sauce because they were told to do this. They did not deliberately commit this act. Only a cruel and uncompassionate person would intentionally give someone hot sauces knowing the person didn’t like it. Games, specifically Mortal Kombat: D.A., cannot be the perpetrator of this claim.
In your article, you also refer to long term studies from school, sharing that, “some studies in schools have found that over time digital warriors get into increasing numbers of scrapes with peers—fights in the schoolyard, for example…psychologists at Brock University in Ontario found that longer periods of violent video game playing among high school students predicted a slightly higher number of such incidents over time” (1). So are we to assume that fights in schools weren’t that prevalent until videogames appeared to the mass media? Violence only seems to be more prominent now because the media exposes it to us. Before videogames or any other media were ever introduced in our culture, bullying and fighting always took place on and off school’s grounds. Most schools’ violent activities and crimes usually involves constant callousness from the people they socialize with; the root of this rage and depression could stem from long periods of bullying within school grounds and sexual, mental, emotional, and physical abuse from family, classmate, and/or intimate partners. Other factors could include: social isolation, humiliation, negligence from family, and other forms of cruelty that might create a suffocating life with oneself and harm others. In some cases, videogames can offer people a chance to express their anger through the game and also occupies the mind from committing crimes and being out on the streets. Playing games with friends, family, and online friends (through the online network experience) can create a closer bond with each other resulting in expressing strong, deep, emotional feelings to one another; decreases chances of outbursts of violence and aggression.
Many negative factors and situations can influence violent and aggressive behaviors within an individual; Videogames are unlikely to be the main cause of these behaviors. Instead, videogames can be beneficial for the mind and body. So Mr. Carey, let me ask these questions to you: Can sociology truly distinguish an individual who is exposed to violent activities and aggressions to someone who just plays games? Or does science, based on the new evidence presented within the article, lack the ability to choose logical reasons for bad behavior with their finding results and by linking this irrelevant research to imply correlation? Maybe we shouldn’t accuse videogames, but question our own society.
Sincerely,
Danielle N. Holmes