How Violent Video Games Negatively Impacts The Developing Child

Hundreds of studies have been done to determine whether violent video games will really make juveniles more violent. Randomized experiments were used in several studies to examine the short-term effect of violent video games (Anderson and Berkowitz et al. 90). In these studies, children were randomly assigned to play violent or nonviolent video games and then were observed when given an opportunity to be aggressive. The result was that children who played violent video games usually behaved aggressively.

The main argument of this article is that video games have a direct link to short term and long term aggression. The author presents this argument by providing studies from peer reviewed articles that all conclude that video games do cause an increase of aggression. The main point of this article is to answer the question, “Do violent video games lead to aggression.” The article is about the effects of violent video games leading to aggression. The author uses recent examples, like the Sandy Hook and Washington Navy Yard shooting. In both of these examples, the author cites that both shooters had a history with playing violent video games. The author uses a study which selected individuals to play violent video games for a certain period of time. The study would then compare the results to a group who played non-violent video games. The study concluded that violent video games cause a direct link in aggression due to humans reenacting the actions the characters within the video games perform.

“Approximately 90 percent of kids in the U.S. play video games, and more than 90 percent of those games involve mature content that includes violence.”-(Time Health). The link between violent media and aggression in video games has also created a spawn of research studies that has gone back and forth on the issue of whether

While violent video games have increased as a form of entertainment, an issue has begun to form on whether violent video games have a negative impact on children and adolescents. Steven F. Gruel (2010) formed an argument about the negative impacts of violent video games on children. The purpose of this paper is to critique Gruel’s argument by finding flaws and strengths using the methods of claims without data, overgeneralization, failing to cite sources, and considering alternative explanations.

Today, you are most likely to see that the first item on a child's christmas list is any video console with violent video games included. For the most part, nobody actually pays attention to the harm they could be exposing their young kids to or maybe they do not notice until it is too late. Its irrational to think that a violent video game would not be able to psychologically and silently affect the mind of a young kid, as it is also causing the kid joy at the same time. But this irrational idea can be proven wrong through research about the effect that violent video games cause on young kids. This effect, that the research mentions, can negatively impact their lives at a young age. Research from different association state that violent games can increase the rate of kids fighting among their communities up to actually committing real crimes. Violent video games also affect the children's emotion toward certain topics such about crimes, fighting, and mass shootings. In certain, video games that portray women getting sexually or physically abuse, can also lead to them doing this certain actions as they grow older. The young kids start to lower their empathy and kindness toward family members, friends, and any person they interact with. Yes, every situation is different, but young children are still exposed to the danger that violent video games have, and their effect on the kids mind. Even though it all depends on the person and how deep they take the video games, but this

Violent video games are not training kids to be murderers. The video game industries have been called against and blamed for making kids more aggressive and violent for years. Although recent studies show that violent video games have been useful for kids to get their anger out. Only some kids were found to be aggressive after violent video game play, but they had three specific traits that lead to this aggressive behavior (“Violent...). Not all kids are affected by violent video games, but people do not know this so they continue to blame video games for their kids bad behaviors. Aggressive behaviors do not come from video games, they come from the environment that the kids grew up around (“Do…).

First, misconceptions and flawed studies have guided the public into believing that video games are the root of vicious adolescent crime. Past studies have indicated that in fact a link does exist between violent video games and violent crime; however, these studies have apparent issues. Many of these studies, failed to prove a legitimate cause and effect between the two variables. The largest problem is that these studies base their findings off means of testing aggression in children that do not correspond with violent in reality. For example, one study evaluated aggression by timing the duration in which someone would inflict a loud noise at another person. In reality, it is extremely difficult to assess a person’s aggression in a simulated experiment that will produce legitimate results because it is not a realistic scenario in the real world. Furthermore, the consequences of afflicting someone with a loud sound are not equivalent to the consequences of committing a mass shooting. Another major misconception is that school shootings are a direct effect of playing violent video games. The issue with that philosophy is that it fails to account for other variables that can lead to violent outbursts such as personality traits, genetics, and home environment. Overall, these misconceptions blame video games as the sole problem, distorting the view of video games

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! If you are just tuning in, we are getting reports of a tragic shooting at a small school early today. A gunman has stepped foot in an elementary school today, shooting and injuring dozens. It is unknown at this point how many have died thus far! Police currently have a suspect in custody, and we will bring you updates as this unfolds…” Switching between channels in the safety of our living rooms, we have unfortunately experienced this terrible news before or one similar. With such tragedies that have taken place and fear of violence growing, Scientists believe relationships develop between video game violence as well as aggression among young children up to young adults, yet so many other teeming

The question is why children are being affected by these games. Is it that the child are mimicking what they see or is it effecting the child’s brain. At Indiana University, Dr. Vincent Matthews decided to create a study to watch brain patterns after playing violent video games. They performed three different tests to find out how these games impacted the brain. They picked out 28 students from campus to play either violent video games, first person shooter games, or non-violent games. What they found was after a couple hours playing these games that those who play violent video games showed no brain activity in areas involving emotions, attention, and impulses. There is science behind violent video games and their negative effects on people. Researchers ran another test after the participants played the games. They held up cards with non-violent words like run or walk, and they were in different colors. They also held up cards with violent words like hit or push which were also in different colors. Those who play violent video games were equal to the non-violent video game players in the original testing but when it came to the violent words, violent video gamers should no brain activity in the area of emotion like the non-violent gamers. When faced with violent topics, the gamers were desensitized to the topic. Alice Park stated in her article, How Playing Violent Video Games May Change the Brain, “The brain changes that Matthews’ group saw were similar to those seen in

Even federal government research has failed to find a statistically significant correlation between increased aggression and violence in video games.

“Recent contents analyses of video games show that many as 89% of games contain some violent contents” (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, Walsh 3). More than half of video games being sold around the world contain some form of violence. All of the violence involved in the video games being played by children is a pattern leading to aggression. Aggression can be caused by many things; however, violent video games are the main cause of aggression in young adults. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad, Alto 1). Thinking that violence in the virtual world is the same as in the real world is the first step to showing aggression. Aggression in children caused by video games is the biggest effect parents and researchers worry about. Violent video games teach children that shooting and killing people are

Video games have become incredibly popular and pervasive form of entertainment. Most of the people prefer to spend their leisure time by playing video games. Video games increase the learning memory and multitasking skills of the children. Video games are enjoyable for children but video games with violence cause aggression in some children as the level of game increases. Now a day violent video games selling growth increases rapidly. Most of the children become addicted to the violent video games because of their parents. Most of the parents busy in their life so much as they don’t have enough time to spend with their children. They give tablets to their children which result in addiction towards violent video games. Violent video games have so much negative effect on the children. Violent video games effect the children mentally and physically. Violent video games should be limited as it changes behavior, causes distraction and health problems.

In today’s society, the average child will devote most of his or her time to playing video games. Research shows that about 38% of preadolescent and 41% of adolescent males use video games on a given day compared with only 16% of preadolescent and 7% of adolescent females (Calvert et. Al. 129). They would spend about 13 hours a week playing video games and around 89% of those games include violence and blood. In Jia-Kun Zheng article, “Priming Effect of Computer Game Violence on Children’s Aggression Levels,” Zheng mainly focuses on how violent and non-violent games effect children, ranging from age 9 to 12, aggression levels. In order to determine the effects, two experiment, referred to as Study 1 and Study 2, were done. In Study 1 the participants played two games and identified them as violent and non-violent. In Study 2 the participants played either the violent or non-violent game and after were tested on the way they responded to a series of questions. In the end they found that those who played violent video games had higher levels of aggression compared to the children who played non-violent video games. While there was no significant difference between girls who played violent video games and non-violent video games, there was a difference in the girls compared to boys – boys were more aggressive (Zheng and Zhang 1747-1755).

The violence in video games is not always noticeable to most adults or more specifically the “non-gamers”. While the graphics in a violent video game are better and more realistic than a general user video game it's more tempting to play.

Controversy about video games continue to escalate between parents and gamers, regarding the psychological effect of simulated, realistic, and 3D violence on the minds of young children and growing teenagers. Yet, research shows that video games contribute very little to today’s everyday violence, despite complaints and concerns that games influence a child’s normal behavior. Technology is a way of life in today’s world, computers are used by toddlers, adolescents, and adults alike. No matter what career path a person chooses, the computer plays an essential role in the job. The more our technology progresses and as our industry grows stronger, computers and electronic entertainment will grow to be found everywhere around the world. This includes videogames.