Video Games and Juvenile Delinquency (Essay Sample)

Video Games and Juvenile Delinquency Insert Your Name Here Institution Affiliation A juvenile, according to most states and at the federal level is a person below the age of 18 years. However the age varies from state to state and can exceed to 19, as in Wyoming or even 17 in Connecticut. In the market today there are many varied types of video games but those associated to juvenile crime are those based on violence as a theme. This may include and not limited to: Call of duty, fall of Max Payne, James Bond and Grand Theft Auto (GTA) among many others. They can be bought from stores across the states or even from the internet at a fee or free at times. Several gaming consoles also are available and may include: Xbox plays station, personal computers, and PSPSs. In addition, these games can also be played in different modes of either single player or multi player. In single player, it’s usually a single human player against the CPU and in the multi-player mode; it is usually several human players gaming against one another or against the computer.         To begin with, let us examine the effects of the video gaming to the juvenile delinquency based on short term laboratory studies. These results usually confirm what any gamer already knows in his mind: playing games such as Max Payne stirs up the blood. In a recent research at Iowa University led by Christopher Barllet, a psychologist. He had the 47 undergraduates play mortal combat: deadly alliance and later tested for physical and psychological arousal. Some would play the game and the other group would play a lesser violent game, FIFA (a football game). The results proved that those who had been exposed to the violent video games had been more aggressive across the board confirming that in the short term these video games may induce juvenile delinquency. According to Carey (2013), a dose of violent video gaming makes people act a little more rudely than what they would otherwise, at least for a few minutes after gaming. Therefore we can conclude that on the short term that base on correlational and experimental studies, there is a positive link between violent video games and juvenile delinquency (Adachi, 2011).         The youths who massacred people at Columbine High School, at the movie theater in Aurora and in many other massacres have mostly had one thing in common: they were regular video gamers who seemed to be acting out of some dark digital fantasy. But is it right to conclude that in the long term video games influence juvenile delinquency? We cannot entirely blame all these incidences to video games. But if you look at the literature, I think it is clear that violent video gaming is one of the factors; it is neither the largest nor the smallest factor (Siegel and Welsh, 2014). Therefore it is worth inferring that there will definitely be a long term effect of violent video games on juvenile delinquency. Furthermore, research reveals that violent video game playing is correlated with aggression. However, its relation to antisocial behavior in correctional and juvenile justice samples is largely unknown (Thomson Reuters, 2015). It should notably be pointed out that violent video gaming negatively impact on the attitude and perception of the "game addicts" towards the society. "Violent video games are associated with ant...