Video Games And Its Effects On Children

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.

Over the past few centuries,video games have become a great leisure and hobby among kids of all ages and cultures. With the advancement of technology, video games have advanced highly in its realism and genres. This high type of advancement brought the video game industry to a multi-billion dollar industry. However, with realism, comes negative effects as well. Ever since the creation of violent or “mature” video games, there has been a constant debate on whether it will increase violence in the player. Although, not all video games are violent, and just increase skills in a player such as hand-eye coordination. Nevertheless, there is research going on for the link between violent video games and youth violence. The question is which event happens first in the sequence, do violent video games aggravate a person’s violent behavior, or does a person get rid of their anger through playing violent video games? Either way, violent video games are not beneficial to our society.

Content analyses show that 89% of video games have some violent content. Half of the video games on the market have extreme violent actions toward other characters. Games, today, are allowing players to not only connect with the game physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. In essence, the player becomes the character. According to Nielson Media Research, at least 45 million households in the United States have at least one video game console (Markey & Charlotte, 2010). The average age of video game players has increased to age 34, and 60% of Americans play interactive games on a regular basis. However, researchers believe that younger children are more susceptible to the negative effects of playing violent video games compared to older teenagers and adults. Furthermore, games that include violence have raised serious concerns among

Video game violence is an increasing problem in today’s youth with violence as one of the most popular themes. Games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty are among the most popular games and have been scientifically proven to have a major effect on teens. Many people try to argue that there is a difference in the effects between genders, however it has been proven wrong. Video games have the same effects as other forms of entertainment but do not get attacked like video games because the other forms are much larger than video games and have a much wider audience. Violence in video games is a rising problem in the United States, causing teens to have less self-control and more emotional disturbances,

A significantly large portion of the video games created within the past 5 to 10 years contain some form of violence. On top of that, some of the most popular video games out in the market today are extremely violent and warrant an “M” rating for mature. Video game developers are well aware of this trend and continue to produce more graphic, interactive, and realistic content. Therefore, there is a concern that the vast amount of violence in video games is changing how youth develop and what they perceive as normal. Many researchers believe that there is a link between video games and increased aggression in the people who play them.

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.

Gentile, D.A., & Anderson, C.A. (2003). Violent Video Games: The Newest Media Violence Hazard. In Media violence and children: A complete guide for parents and professionals. Westport, Connecticut, London: Praeger. Retrieved from https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/jbickfor/gentile.anderson2003.pdf

In the 90’s there was even enough media attention to video game violence that the United States Congress had a hearing on issuing age appropriate labels, much like in movies, to video games to warn parents of the contents of a game. Each of these matters have only helped further tarnish the reputation of video games, and draw worse misconceptions about them.

Blood, gore, explicit content, use of drugs, intense violence, some might think this describes some drug war in a third world country but these are actual phrases the the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) uses to describe the Grand Theft Auto Series ("Harvard Mental Health Letter" ). In 2008, the Pew Research center stated that ninety-seven percent of youths ages twelve to seventeen played some type of video game, over half of which played video games with violent content. A separate study found that close to half of the video games out there rated by ESRB (See Figure 1 for an example of a rating)were considered violent and close to ninety percent of those games were rated for ten year olds and above ("Harvard Mental Health Letter" ). Given how popular these games are its no wonder that mental health experts find themselves being asked by parents what effect do these games have on their children.

Findings supporting these claims also show that with an increase in violence comes other negative health risks such as an increased likelihood of substance abuse, sexual activity, and obesity(Denniston, Swahn, Feldman, and Romero). Media use, and subsequent exposure to violent content is extremely prevalent among 8 to 18 year old children who spend, on average, 7.4 hours a day using media or computers and 80% of teens have some type of gaming console(Denniston, Swahn, Feldman, and Romero) These claims and the amount of media children are exposed to were concerning enough that the American Academy of Pediatrics started making advisory statements about violent video games and media being health risks for children in 2001. (Hall, Day, and Hall) Since then the link between violent games and violent behavior in youths has been researched across many “population groups”(Denniston, Swahn, Feldman, and Romero). The second theory revolves around any positive effects that might be gained from playing these games (Hall, Day, and Hall). Stating that these may offer “safe” outlets for negative emotions and thusly allowing players to be more emotionally balanced. (Hall, Day, and Hall)

As a video game and computer game lover, the thought that negative effects ever being present in these enjoyable past time devices never crossed my mind. Over this past summer I was able to spend countless hours improving my skills on different games. I of course made multiple visits to video game stores such as Game Stop and Game Crazy. As I entered one these stores to purchase a new game, I noticed two boys, probably about eight or nine years of age, were playing one of the latest war games on a new video game console known as the Xbox 360. As I walked over to the shelves to search for the game that I had gone there to buy I heard a loud, "That's right bitch, I got your ass!" I slowly turned to notice that it was one of the boys who were

Video games create social and emotional problems in today’s society. More and more scenes of violence are being drilled into the brains of innocent children, and no one is doing anything to stop it. Children are spending countless hours playing video games and consuming their contents. As many as ninety seven percent of the kids in the US ranged from ages 12-17 play video games, contributing to the twenty two billion dollar domestic video game industry (Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?). More than half of the fifty top-selling video games contain violence (Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?). Research also showed that children from ages 7-12 routinely played games rated M for mature audiences, which was the most violent and

Many parents in today’s society are adamant about their teenagers refraining from playing violent video games. Specifically, parents worry about their children playing mature-rated video games that feature blood, gore, vulgar language, use of drugs, and intense violence. Quite a few of these parents believe that their children can be heavily influenced by these brutal video games, which will in turn raise their teenagers to become violent, aggressive, and criminal minded individuals. In hindsight, these parents have good reason to protect their offspring from being mentally harmed by what they interact with. This idea that parents believe that their children will develop criminal behavior and become violent individuals is actually a common misconception that many parents hold to be true. In fact, there have been studies that have shown the benefits of youth playing these violent video games and how it positively affects their mental skills and brain development.

Since the dawn of the video game era more and more people have become interested in games. The growing population has also become of younger in age as games have become simpler to play. At the same time, games have become more graphic with advances in technology. Most of today's kids are exposed to games every day, whether it's at home, school, or around the community in advertisements. Many of today's games include violence and weapons used to kill each other, or others on the game. Since these types of games were introduced violence among young kids has increased. In this paper we will 1) define the problem more in depth and show the extent of the problem around the community and 2) explore possible solutions and the best possible solution to the problem of increasingly bad behavior in kids due to violent video games.

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.