Hasbro's Negative Influence On Children

In today’s time with the new head turning technology in video games most of the games have some sort of violence present in them. Many games past and present incorporate some kind of violence such as, killing with weapons, using explosives, and crashing cars. With all of the present day technology all activities portrayed during in-game scenarios are becoming more and more realistic. In 2005 the state of California enacted a law to ban the sale of certain violent games to children without the consent of their parents. The law was created based upon the idea that with the realistic in-game events real behavior could be drastically effected by the violence. The worries are that tragic events such as massacres could occur based on ideas seen in games. Incidents such as high school shooting have heightened concerns of potential connections between violent games and violent actions.

Thousands of teens in the United States play violent video games everyday, for hours on end. Teens and children playing violent games are now accepted as a part of life. They sit in front of a screen and watch blood and gore, with no emotions and without cringing. The games become increasingly more violent, as the age that children begin to play these games drops, from twelve to ten to eight. Now, we have six or seven-year-old children playing games rated M, for 17 and older. Teens should not be allowed to play violent role-playing games because it teaches them that violence is acceptable, that it is fun to be violent, as well as desensitizing them to violence.

Children play. The manner in which children have played has frequently changed throughout the years. There was a time where sticks or index fingers were used to symbolize guns or bows in order for children to play “cowboys and Indians.” Later, the same mechanisms were used as children would play “cops and robbers.” Children mimic what they see in reality when it is time to play. However, children are not known to mimic what they play when functioning in real life. For example, children who played “cowboys and Indians” were not known to actually go out and try to harm others in the belief that they actually were cowboys or Indians. These examples are relevant in today’s society as critics of violent video games often attribute violence in reality to the violence in video games. However, videos games are a form of play and, as the previous examples have shown, what a child plays is not reflected in what that child actually does in their real life.

Video games are prevalent among impressionable children and teenagers. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the violent themes used in video games. Teenage shootings in schools have led society to question the relationship between video violence and criminal activity. After considerable research, expert opinions, and research findings, the American Psychological Association found that there is no link between gaming and criminal behavior (Casey). With this, the pursuit of video violent games continues to grow in our society. With games that show execution style murders, blood oozing from gunshot wounds, and victims moaning from wounds, it certainly is gratifying for the indulgent player. The ongoing concern about aggression and violence has once again been proven to be non-existent (Alert). My thoughts are that this cartoon like violence is appeals to the need for violence in an artificially designed environment. In this manner, violence is contained within the boundaries of fantasy. This is unlike “The Crucible” which occurs in with real people, events, and situations. Thus, directing violence in the realm of societal dysfunction that has endured with

Did you know that according to Dr. Bret Conrad, the majority of gamers believe that video game violence has few, if any harmful effects on them personally? Well, many people today play games with simulated violence ranging from games like “Killer” to games like Grand Theft Auto. One example, “Killer”, takes place in multiple New York City high schools at the end of the year. It consists of two teams, each student is assigned a person to shoot and they have to shoot them before they are shot. The students have to use water pistols to shoot their person. Once they are killed, their game is over. While some agree that games with simulated violence are perilous for teens, games with simulated violence are beneficial for teens because they help kids with problem solving skills, keep them busy and helps them help others.

Some people think kids shouldn’t play violent role playing games because they think it gets kids to stalk other kids, but i think it’s good because it promotes teamwork, strategy, and espionage, all three of which will help the student in the future. At St. Ann's high school a game lasts two and a half weeks and has built up a seventeen-point rule book, a map of the safe zones around the school, a judge, and an entry fee, all for a harmless water pistol game. In the end this was all just about Killer, a last-man-standing game of water-pistol ambush, just because people considered it a violent role playing game even though it teaches the kids a lot and is just a water pistol game and if you still disagree with me go out out and try it for yourselves

Video game companies are continuously releasing more and more realistically violent video games onto the market in order to sell more copies, because market statistics clearly show that violence sells: all the most popular video games include a violent main theme. Many games include very real-life scenarios with existing weaponry that were created to be as close to the real thing as possible. This can teach children all about the way a gun works and how to use it. If a child is killing people in an almost perfectly realistic virtual world, it would quickly desensitize that child, making it easier for him/her to commit such acts in real-life. A young boy brought his dad's gun to an American school one day and used it to shoot a boy who had been bullying him. In the video games the boy played, when a person was shot, the person would simply fall to the ground with a

Games with simulated violence are perilous for teens, because the teens participating are going through other people’s personal information, attacking people in public, and, more generally, are more violent when they are older.

Parents are always getting frustrated with their children about getting outside more to get some fresh air instead of sitting inside playing video games… A high speed, action filled game would do just that. Adults wouldn’t need to worry about their kids getting outside because they will already be running around with friends. In Guy Martin’s article, he says, “Since the start of the game, the twelfth graders had been sleeping on futons in a couple of vans borrowed from their parents, the better to pull off a stoop-side ambush and avoid being ambushed themselves.” Some people would argue that violence simulating games would be perilous because it could teach an adolescent bad or unsafe habits, but they would not need to worry because the people involved in the game could use a water gun instead of a real gun, a water balloon instead of

As technology as progressed, more people, especially youth, take part in playing video games. There has been an steady increase of video game usage because of the fact that video games have become more life-like and realistic. While they have become more realistic in aesthetic ways, they have also become more violent in content as well. Games like Call of Duty

Video games shoulder the blame when discussing the delicate minds of children and what they are exposed to. The name of their game: Desensitization. A virtual reality which enables adolescents to relate to or live through a fictional character can undercut the violence some of these games let the player experience. “First person shooter (FPS), Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games and fighting games largely favor intense battles with temporary or no unfavorable consequences”(Philips 2009). Some games allow the user total freedom, including the ability to run over, shoot, and dismember pedestrians for points. The impact may vary between aggressive behavior and social ineptitude; either which still requiring a nominal amount of exposure to highly explicit depictions by this form of entertainment. In addition, not to be left out is the possibility that a lack of sufficient interaction from parental figures resulted in the reclusive or aggressive behavior of a child to begin with(Jones).

In Grand Theft Auto, you run a round picking up jobs in an imaginary city. These jobs range from killing union workers to stealing pricy automobiles. In Conker’s Bad Fur day, you play as a playful cartoon squirrel that drinks beer and urinates on the enemy to defeat him. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, 90% of the games played today actually reward the player to injure another person and these were the games rated Teen. These types of gratuitous violence portrayed in video games transfer over into the everyday lives of these children. Studies of children exposed to violence have shown that they can become: “immune” or numb to the horror of violence, imitate the violence they see, and show more aggressive behavior the more they’re exposed to violence. Some children accept violence as a way to handle problems. Studies have also shown that the more realistic and repeated the exposure to violence, the greater the impact on children. For instance, a child in Kentucky ended up bringing a revolver to school and shot 8 students. Police ended up pin-pointing the source to the video games the child had been playing. The child ended up raking in more than 10,000 hours of a shoot em’ up style game that rewarded bonus points for headshots.

On July 22, 2016, an 18 year old male began to open fire on the Olympia Shopping Mall in Munich, Germany. After successfully killing ten and injuring 36 more, the gunner turned the firearm on himself and ended his own life. After a long investigation, it was reported that the shooter was a fan of First Person Shooter (FPS) video games. This newfound information sparked a new flame to the decade old argument of how video game violence leads to aggressive behavior and more real world violence in teens and young adults. While many news posts spread the word that videogame violence is negative, there have actually been an overwhelming amount of studies and debates that result in videogames with violence having mental and physical benefits to the player.

The evolution of video games has taken a drastic change since the 1970’s when video games were first introduced. Since then every decade video games have become more violent in nature with strong language and realistic to suit society today. Craig Anderson states that with more violence in video games they would sell better than games with less violence (Anderson, Gentile, and Beckley pg.5). Violent video games really became popular when the first person shooter games were invented so that we could see through the eyes of the player, as if we were really experiencing it. Society wanted better graphics and games as time went on new technology was invented and society matured in electronics. This meant that for game creators would have to come up with something better selling than the last. Creators would make the games more violent and more realistic each time so that way they can keep the interest of their consumers. Each game would increase in blood or gore slowly, but what really got consumers to buy their games would be the update of graphics in the consoles or games. This is due to the drastic changing of technology and the maturing of consumers wanting better and newer violent video games. Violent video games can cause children to behave violently if not correctly supervised.

“Head shot! That guy was destroyed!” These are just some examples of the dialogue spoken between children who play video games like “Call of Duty” or “Halo.” Children brag about the number of people they have killed in these games. Playing violent video games may cause children to act violently. First, violent video games train players to act aggressively by repeatedly killing an enemy over and over. Second, children mimic what they see, whether it’s in real life or on a video screen. Third, being exposed to the violent behaviors of the game, dead bodies, and blood, make the players insensitive to violence. Because the violence from video games affects the behavior of children, violent video games should not be available for purchase by anyone under age eighteen.