Young people are exposed to large amounts of violence in real life and media, which leads to desensitization. For males, exposure to higher levels of real-life violence was associated with diminishing (vs. increasing) emotional distress when viewing violent videos. This points to diminished empathy and reduced emotional reactivity to violence as key aspects of desensitization to real-life violence.
Children who have been brought up on violent computer games and TV programs featuring violence with no counterbalancing moral admonitions have been desensitized to violence and exposed to a destructive ideology.
Active Shooter, which has a June 6 release date is a video game that allows players to simulate a school shooting. The game is described as “realistic” and “impressive.”
In the game’s description online, it says players are given the option to either be a shooter or SWAT team member while simulating a shooting in a school.
“Pick your role, gear up and fight or destroy!” the game description on the website states. “Be the good guy or the bad guy. The choice is yours! Only in Active Shooter, you will be able to pick the role of an elite SWAT team member or the actual shooter.”
Stetson University professor Christopher Ferguson, who has studied violence in video games for well over 10 years claims there’s no evidence whatsoever at this point for the need to have a conversation about violence in video games after mass shootings.
The question here has to be; “What are you going to believe, your own common sense or a university “expert” whose funding is a question”?
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