The Negative Effects Of Violent Video Games On Children

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.

A huge controversy in today’s society is violent video games and their behavioral effect on the children and adults who play them. Violent video games have been blamed for bullying, school shootings, and even violence towards women. Many have fought that violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence, and that they are teaching the youth that violence is an acceptable conflict-solving strategy. Other sources have stated otherwise. The 2004 Secret Service has stated that only one-eighth of attackers have exhibited interests in video games. Violent Video games do not cause violent behavior or behavior problems because it has not been proven that there is a link between violent video games and behavioral issues, playing video games provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and reduces violence in young children, and violent juvenile crime has actually gone down since the violent video game popularity has increased.

Video games have become very influential on children and adults (Stafford, 1999). With violent video games humans are more prone to act aggressively, to have aggressive thoughts and become numb towards violence (Harding, 2009). Apart from these they are

(White, 2009, p. 2) Video games also cause children to develop social problems. Their empathy decreases and they are less willing to help others. Children become antisocial spending less and less time interacting with family members, friends, and playing. They are controlled by what is occurring on the screen in front of them, locking themselves up in their rooms, or away from others just to play endless hours of video games. Video games have progressed over recent years becoming far more violent, sophisticated, and addictive. Studies have shown that the effects of video games and aggressive behavior follow almost the same pattern as that of studies with violent media such as cartoons.

It is agreeable that there are some correlation between teenagers playing video games and how it affects the youth mentally. Heavy consumption of violence video games does indeed stimulate a change reaction in the brain waves, but there is no hard evidence stating that those changes causes teenagers to act aggressively and violently. On the contrary, it is a popular beliefs that violence video games does indeed causes teenagers to displayed unpleasant behaviors and actions because that is what they learned and observed from the games. Therefore, parents should limit and regulate the amount of time their teenagers are playing violence video games so that they can protect their children from negative behaviors.

In video games, people have a chance to kill people or other creature within feeling empathy to those who are killed. If people play a lot of video games, it triggers their mirror neurons and people think killing is fine. It has been shown that violent video games can encourage you g people to act violently. Children are immature and they cannot always tell the difference between real life and the fantasy world they see in video games. Many kids unconsciously become violent after repeatedly seeing violence happen. Games such as GTA have many details in them. Stealing cars, robbing stores, killing people, even doing drugs, selling them and using them. Teenagers in general are very adapt to risky behavior that is sometimes seen as violent. I don’t think that video games can be seen as contributing to teen violence. Parents need to monitor what their children/ teenagers are

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…).

“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.

When kids get bored they turn to their PlayStation four, Nintendo DS, or Xbox and play their favorite games. According to the journal of the American Medical Association, “Several peer-reviewed studies have shown that children who play M-rated games are more likely to bully and cyberbully their peers, get into physical fights, be hostile, and show aggression towards their peers.”(Carter 32) Video games are known as ‘time-wasters’ to parents, and worse, these games can corrupt the brain. Furthermore, when playing violent video games kids can attach the game into their personal life. Some games can teach kids wrong values. Playing violent video games can cause aggression, bullying, and depression in kids.

“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 can lead to aggression, addiction, and bad behavior. Spending too much time playing video games can provoke teens to act in a violent manner. Teens can learn to act in an aggressive manner in our society when killing a large number of enemies in certain video games. Brutal killings in these games tend to train the mind of teens to become violent. “A study found that 66 percent of researchers, 67 percent of parents and 90 percent of pediatricians agree or strongly agree that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior among children.” (Work Cited #2). Those are pretty high numbers and they’re all correct. For example, when kids have an opportunity to shoot someone with a gun, or slash someone with a blade, they’ll do it for the benefit to win the game. Doing this can have a violent affect for them in the real world as well. All the

Violent Video Games and Violent Behavior2Violent Video Games and Violent BehaviorThere have been over 200 school shooting incidents ― an average of nearly one a week ― since the horrifying morning when 20-year-old Adam Lanza marched into Sandy Hook Elementary School and did the unthinkable (Miller, H). Many adults including parents and psychologist attribute the increase in school shootings and violent acts by children/adolescents to playing violent video games. Contrary to the belief of many adults and psychologists that specialize in child development, violent video games are not an influence on violent behavior in children and should not be regulated by the government any further than what is already in place, age restrictions. Violent video games and video games in general should not be regulated because video games help in the development of cognitive skills, the gaming industry is an industry that is providing a lot of economic benefits to the United States, and playing multiplayer or online video games allow users to socialize and relax.To begin with, one of the major reasons as to why video games should not be regulated any further, besides age restricting, is that video games help in the development of cognitive skills such as memory and problem solving. The best proof that video-gaming improves these

Many studies have taken place to determine the effects of violent video games on children for example, “Irwin and Gross (1995) assessed physical aggression (e.g., hitting, shoving, pinching, pulling at clothes or hair, kicking) between boys who had just played either a violent or a nonviolent video game. Those who had played the violent video game were more physically aggressive toward peers” (Anderson, 2003). This study done by Irwin and Gross proves that children lose basic social skills after participating in playing violent games.

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.

Furthermore, violent video games increase violent thinking most especially among children. The graphics and instruments used in most games introduce so many things to children which they are not supposed to know e.g. gun. Video games that uses gun (violent video game) might make children think gun can be used anytime