Since my research paper will be about how video games can help people suffering from depression, I wanted to talk about the other side for this blog. While searching for secondary sources in Omnifile, a lot of articles about how video games are bad for those with depression. Although the typical view of video games is an addictive waste of time and/or a trashcan for the money your parents worked for, most of those articles would be about how video games would create psychopaths and murderers, and I want to refute it. The video games that they mentioned would cause such a thing are anything that involves killing but more specifically, First Person Shooters. The violence and adrenaline rush from killing other players with various guns while trying to stay alive yourself apparently influences depressed children to bring such chaos to their real lives.
However, I do not see how a video game can cause someone to become a shooter or anything like that. Even if it did influence them to kill those he or she hates, it does not explain how the weapon will be obtained or how they will execute that plan. Some may argue that the game can help plan when and where to attack due to similar strategies, but a quick Google search would be not much different if not better. They are just another form of entertainment, just like violent movies but those don’t get any blame. I do agree that they can get addictive and, therefore, time-consuming, but to make such accusations that they create murderers is absurd and an excuse to reject video games.
