INTRO

MODERATOR:
CLAIM 1: Violent games can increase aggression
PANEL 1: AGREE (PARENT)
Thank you miss moderator. Assalamualaikum w.b.t and good evening to all the panelist and audience.
I’m so glad to be invited as a panel for today’s discussion. I agree that violent games will lead to
violence. My point is violent games can increase aggression in players. Multiple studies have shown
that playing violent games can increase aggressive thoughts, behaviors and feelings whether it is in
the short-term or long-term. Psychologist, Craig A. Anderson stated in the article, “Violent Video
Games can Increase Aggression”, that in the short run, playing violent games can affects aggression
by priming aggressive thoughts while the long-term effects might be long lasting as the player can
learns and practices new aggression-related scripts that are more accessible to use when real-life
conflict arises. The more time a player spends playing violent games, it becomes easier for them to be
aggressive. Furthermore, with the existence of forum in the games, it can provide the players with the
chance to learn and practice aggressive behavior in real-life. The players in the games come from all
kind of background and with different beliefs, so it is not impossible for some players to induce other
players to use aggression to solve any problem they encounter. Hence, I strongly agree that violent
games can lead to violence at it can increase aggression among players.

MODERATOR: Thank you, panel 1 for sharing your thoughts. What do you think about this claim,
panel 2?

PANEL 2: DISAGREE (COUNSELLOR)

Thank you miss Ashikin. Assalamualaikum and good evening, everyone. It is true that violent games
can increase aggression as mentioned by panel 1, however this does not mean that the players will
exert violence in real life. Many people get confused between aggression and violence. Aggression
and violence are different. In general, aggression usually refers to angry or hostile thoughts, feelings
or behaviours, while violence tends to be associated with physical acts that hurt someone such as
punching, kicking or the more serious one, like killing. Violence is a form of aggression but
aggression is not violence. Frustration, talking balk, yelling and arguing are a few examples of
aggression that is not violent. I believe that everyone here has experience at least one of these in our
life. In fact, even the non-violent games can increase the aggressive level among the players in short-
term. This is due to the competitive nature of the games itself. In the article, “no, there’s no link
between video games and violence” written by Mae Anderson, Benjamin Burroughs, a professor of
emerging media at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas said that plenty of gamers will get upset
when they lose but it does not lead to violent output. Other example are children that feel more
aggressive or making louder noises a few minutes after playing a violent game than after playing a
nonviolent game. So, I disagree that violent games can lead to violence in real life.

MODERATOR: Okay, thank you for sharing your opinion panel 2. Now let’s proceed to panel 3,
as a student, would you tell us your opinion for our topic?

CLAIM 2: Violent games can desensitize the players to real life violent
PANEL 3: AGREE (STUDENT)
Thank you miss moderator. My opinion for this topic is that I agree that violent games can lead to
violence. My reason is that violent games can desensitize the players to real-life violence. This means
that those who were exposed to violent games are more likely to have no reaction or feelings towards
real violent. For example, when a person witnesses a fight, at the beginning there’s some negative
emotional reactions such as emotional distress and strong disapproval, however after repeated
exposure to such violence he or she will become numb to it and feels like that’s normal, and it’s
nothing serious. The negative reaction diminishes through habituation. Most violent games require the
players to kill using guns, hammers, chainsaws and other type of weapons, with the high-quality
graphics that portray bloods and body parts almost realistically. So, players are exposed to violence
through violent games every time they play. Those who become desensitized to violence are more
likely to commit violent act such as bullying. According to the article “Do Children Who Bully Their
Peers Also Play Violent Video Game?”, children who play highly violent and mature games were
likely to bully and cyber bully their peers based on the parent and child reports. Study shows that
children that were exposed to violence can become immune to violence, imitate the violence they see,
and show more aggressive behaviors. I myself has become a victim of bullying by the students who
plays violent games. From what I can see, those who plays violent games are a lot more aggressive.
Some students who play violent games feels that it’s okay to punch or kick others when something
does not go the way they want, or simply just for fun. Not only that, even if when they were not
directly involves in the fighting, they will show greater hesitancy to call a for help from teacher when
they witnessed the fighting. Or they simply watch at the side, which shows that they have less
sympathy towards the victims. Thus, I agree that violent games can lead to violence because it causes
players to become desensitized to violence.

INTERRUPT
PANEL 2: Sorry to interrupt, but while it is true that too much exposure to violence can cause people
to become desensitized towards real violent, this does not only applicable to violent games. In fact,
real life violence is more likely to cause people to desensitized towards violent. As panel 3 has
mentioned earlier, some player who plays violent games might feel that it’s alright to fight or bully
others, however this should not be attributed to violent games only, as there might be other factors
that lead to fighting and bullying such as family problem, living environment and mental-health
problem. Violent games might be just a small factor among others.

MODERATOR: Ok. Thank you panel 3 and panel 1 for sharing your opinions. Now panel 4, as
someone who plays violent game, what are your opinion on this topic?
CLAIM 3: Players can distinguish between virtual and reality
CLAIM 4: Players play violent games as an outlet of their emotion
PANEL 4: DISAGREE (PLAY VIOLENT GAME)
Thank you miss Ashikin. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for inviting me for this
discussion. As a player that play violent games, I disagree that violent games can lead to violence.
This is because those who play violent games can still distinguish between virtual and reality.
Whether they are children or adult, they know that they are playing a game. So, as a player, we knew
what we can and what we cannot do in real life. It is not reasonable to say that those who plays violent
games will imitate the violence in real life as the violent acts in the real world involve complex set of
physical actions while we only use controller to play the games. This shows that it is not as easy as it
seen to actually imitate a violent act just by looking. Let’s take shooting for example. The actual act
of firing a gun is totally different from how players pressing the buttons on the controller.
Furthermore, violent games become an outlet for players to release their anger virtually. In other
word, players play violent games to release their stress and anger in the games instead of venting their
anger in reality. Some players use violent games to do violent behaviors, such as crashing cars to a
building to vent their anger without any consequences. A peer-reviewed study published in the
Journal of Adolescent Health found that children, especially boys, play video games as a mean of
managing their emotions. The study shows that, 61.9% of boys played to help them relax, 47.8%
played because it helps them to forget their problems while the other 45.4% played to vent their anger.
Violent games can also help players to release their stress.

INTERUPT:
PANEL 1: Sorry to interrupt panel 4, but can you give us some evidence to support that playing
violent games can release stress?

PANEL 4:
Sure. According to a study by Texas A&M International University associate professor, Dr Cristopher
J. Ferguson, young adults, male and female that play violent games long-term can handle stress better
than non-playing adults and become less depressed and less hostile following a stressful task. This
study shows that violent games can be a form of help for people to work through their frustrations
with real life and calm down without increasing aggressive behaviors in real life.

MODERATOR:
Thank you panel 4 for sharing your view. Now we shall proceed to the Q&A session.
QUESTION:
How can parents control their children when playing violent games?
MODERATOR: Well, why don’t we ask panel 1, as a parent to answer this question. Please, panel 1.
ANSWER:
PANEL 1:
Okay thank you for the question. First of all, as a parent you need to know what exactly your child is
playing and whether the games are appropriate for the child’s age or not. When it comes to violent
games, you should also find the description of the games so that you know about the contents of the
games. Secondly, parents can also play the games with the children. By doing this, you can gain a
better and deeper understanding of the games. Parents can guide the child while playing as to not let
them imitate any violence behavior from the games. Lastly, parents should set the limiting amount of
screen time to avoid the child spend too much time playing games and to prevent them from being
obsessed with violent games. I hope these three tips can help more parents out there. Of course, these
tips can also be applied for non-violent games
MODERATOR: Thank you panel 1, I am sure that a lot of parents among our audience finds these
tips helpful.
END
MODERATOR:
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