In 2008, 97% of 12-17 year olds in the U.S. played a video game, creating an $11.7 billion domestic video game industry. Violent video games are especially popular having 10 out of 20 best selling games containing violence in the U.S. violent video games are continuously blamed for teen bullying, youth violence, and school shootings. At the same time violent video game popularity increased, bullying became an increasing problem in the United States. Studies show that violence in video games desensitize impressionable children; so that they are numb to the pain of others feelings. Critics of violent video games also say that the effects the violence has caused many shootings in the past decade. Majority of the investigation after a shooting shows that the perpetrators are avid violent video game players. Studies show that players of violent video games are less likely to come to a non-violent solution when dealt with a problem; which causes them to start shooting instead of getting being open about it and getting counseled.
Sales for video games have quadrupled from 1995-2008, while the arrest rate for juvenile crime has declined 49.3% in the same period. This convinced a lot of people that violent video games don’t have an effect on our youth. But more and more studies show that the effect violent video games have is long-term, so it’ll affect them in their adult years. In 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was created to rate video games based on their content. The ESRB has six different rating based on the age group, “Early Childhood”, “Everyone”, “Everyone 10+”, “Teen”, “Mature”, and “Adult Only”. In 2005, Hillary Clinton introduced a bill that made selling “Mature” and “Adult Only” rated games to minors illegal, but later made unconstitutional by violating the free-speech rights. In a Pew Research Center, a study from 2008 showed that 50% of boys and 14% of girls of ages 12-17 listed a “Mature” rated game as their one of their top...