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Video Games: Their Negative Influence on Children's

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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 …show more content…

In a game where the male is the main character females usually portrayed as helpless and needy and in most cases always need to be rescued. They are considered the damsels in distress. People may argue to an extent that there are also games that have females as the main characters too, such as the game Lara Croft, but this and other games define femininity in a very different way. Females who play larger roles in video games are portrayed extremely sexual. Since most gaming companies are comprised of mostly or all men, they portray the female characters as they would in a male's fantasy. For example, Lara Croft's body is considered grossly unnatural. She does not have the same body proportions that a woman has. Her breast and waist sizes just don't exist in real life. And this applies to practically all females in video games. The last kind of video game that I would like to inform parents about are known as first person shooter games. These kinds of games basically teach kids how to kill. In the video documentary, Game Over (2002), Sergeant Baker explains how the U.S Military made a 30 year research on how first person shooter games effectively teaches someone to kill another person. In the military they use a live video feed simulator known as F.A.T.S, which stands for Fire Arm Training Simulator. The only difference between a first person shooter game and the simulator is that if a soldier accidentally shoots the wrong person they

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