How Violent Video Games are Related to Crime Rates

How Violent Video Games Are Related to Crime Rates
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How Violent Video Games Are Related to Crime Rates
Research Topic and Hypothesis
The selected research topic explores how violent video game exposure is related to crime rates. According to Cunningham et al. (2016), different researchers have studied this topic from different contexts, leading to contracting findings. This aspect has made it a divisive discourse because some sections find significant associations with others do not. Even McCaffree and Proctor (2018) recognize the need for continued research to bring clarity to the various studies. In this context, the research hypothesis is that there is no significant relationship between violent video games and crime rates among youths. The three articles selected are fundamental and relevant because they all explore the effects of violent video games on a group within the same age bracket. As a result, their results will significantly inform the conclusions of this study.
Article 1
The research topic for article one is the impact of the degree of exposure to violent video games, family background, and other factors on youth violence.
Several research questions guided the article. One is whether the time spent playing violent video games leads to violent behavior. The second sought to investigate whether the relationship strength diminishes substantially by introducing the propensity for violent media as a control. The final research question was whether other environmental and social aspects trigger a strong prediction of violent tendencies. These research questions are interesting because they would lead the research to affirm or disapprove of the association of damaging outcomes with aggressive video games.
The dependent variables in this article comprise the question of whether one “intentionally hit someone to hurt them” and “participated in fighting where their friends fought against other groups” (DeCamp & Ferguson, 2016). The independent variables are propensity to violent video games and exposure to these video games.
DeCamp and Ferguson’s (2016) article uses a survey as its primary method. It integrates diverse experimental measurements, including exposure to violent video games, the propensity to control for bias, and parental attachment, among other controls. The researchers’ approach enabled them to determine whether the violent video games exposure indices any significant associations with adverse outcomes with and without controls. This operationalization of the dependent and independent variables was critical because it informed the study’s results.
In the absence of controls, the results associated playing video games with violent-inclined outcomes. Although these associations are small, they remain statistically significant. However, introducing controlling factors eliminated this association or left them negligible. As a result, these results demonstrate that violence in video games does not predict the emergence of youth violence.
The study by DeCamp and Ferguson (2016) effectively operationalized their dependent and...