Violent Screen Time On Children

In my most recent essay I wrote of the violence attributed to video games in light of various shootings and other tragedies that occurred in the past year or so. In this essay I argued that despite their violent content, video games are not completely to blame for acts of violence committed by children. Throughout this essay I tried to convince the reader by, first, establishing my own credibility with video games, then sharing my own experiences with violent games, and providing both empirical data and valuable insight from trusted sources.

Many people believe that violent video games play a big role in the violence we see in schools today. Gaming plays a large role in children’s lives and have begun to

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.

“According to data recently released by The NPD Group, in 2012, U.S. video game software sales reached $6.7 billion (174.8 million units) and computer game sales were $380 million (13.2 million units)” (Improving Economy). To many, the violent video game industry has turned all adolescents into mass murderers. However, they’re absolutely wrong. Very seldom do adolescents who play violent video games commit acts of violence, and the ones who do usually have a mental disorder. Instead of blaming the tragedies that occur on violent video games, the news media should explain to people that a large percentage of young males play violent video games, indicating that the two are uncorrelated. They should alternatively research other possible solutions to the crisis. In lieu of negatively affecting people’s lives, video games could potentially improve their lives!

Prolonged scenes of massive violence, graphic sexual content, and animated blood are examples of statements that the Entertainment Software Rating Board uses to depict the content in over fifty- five percent of the video games rated yearly. The debate of whether the aggressive nature of these video games influences youth violence in our country has been heatedly battled for decades. Since the mid 1980’s, it has been suggested that high profile cases of violence are due to an aggressor’s excessive video game use. However, much like a cold case the type of connection between video game use and youth violence remains without a definite answer. Most believe that video game use negatively influences child aggression acts in our country. Others firmly declare that video games provide a realm of opportunity for child development. Ultimately, it is impossible to say that video game use affects every child the same way. New studies suggest that video games do not affect every child that plays a game. Although violent video games are innocuous for the majority of adolescents between the ages of twelve and eighteen, the effects of these games are aggravated in those with pre- existing antisocial or depressive traits.

“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

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

The release of early games, such as Pac-Man, Donkey-Kong, and Space Invaders, initiated the innovative and precedent era of video game popularity; however, modern games follow a distinctly uniform pattern in violent graphics and paucity of discretion. Whereas early media did little to affect the teenage psyche, the impact of modern media and its barbaric implications are considerably heightened by the large teen proclivity towards television, video games, and film. Surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation6 have shown that in today’s highly digitalized society, children ages eight to eighteen spend approximately six and a half to seven and a half hours a day using media devices. Correlatively, research from the Pew Internet Project reveal that 97% of American teenagers play video games. Such media saturation, while undoubtedly harmful to health and social interactions, has only become psychologically harmful in recent years with the emergence of violence in interactive and narrative media. Unable to actively participate in violent crimes in the real world, teenagers take solace in doing so in the imaginary one, effectively learning to disassociate themselves from the characters they brutalize and murder. This talent, unfortunately, has become useful to those whose minds have been

In Grand Theft Auto V, players are awarded a prostitute’s money once they kill her and forced to enact a torture session on someone to extract information from him; in the Call of Duty Franchise, players are prompted to gun down and bomb innocent civilians. These games are only a few examples of exposure to violence in a rising media form. Considering that “upward[s] of 90 percent of American children between the ages of 2 and 17 play video and computer games regularly” (Funk, 1993), the high content of violence in video games should be re-evaluated. Though not all violence in video games is depicted seriously, “most of the top-selling video games (89%) [contain] violent content” (Knowles et. al, 2001). There have been thousands of studies indicating a

Violence now of days is honored, glorified, and yet celebrated in mass media and motions to society that violence is normal, glamorous, and widespread in our culture (Caron, 113). Violence is not only present in television shows and movies, but also in other forms such as cartoons, and video games (Caron, 121). Children are playing more and more violent video games at younger ages because the parents are not paying enough attention to what is going on in their child’s life.

Over the years, the popularity of computer and video games has grown. Specifically violent video games make up more than 50 % of the top selling games. These games include violent themes that involve guns, crime, blood, and gore. There is an ongoing belief that these types of games are to blame for the many acts of violence in society and have encouraged America’s youth to act out in aggression. Several organizations, such as the PTC (Parents Television Council) have moved to discourage the development of violent games while also pushing for stronger regulations when purchasing such games. There is also debate among parents and concerns on how games can negatively influence their children. So is there a direct link between video games and violence? The truth is video games do not encourage violence in society based on several factors which include scientific studies, statistics on crime, and prevention measures adopted by game publishers.

Aimee Tompkins (2003) claims that children are being affected by everything what they see around them in the youth, and people, who see violence in the youth, always tend to be more hostile and less responsive to images of violence. That 's why parents try to border children from any possible negative influences. But they often do not even realize that by buying to child a game console, they put them into the risk. Since most video games contain violent character. According to statistics given by the ‘Children now’ organization (2001), 89% of the top-selling video games have violent character and serious violence is contained in half of them.

“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

With the amount of violent video games saturating the market it is difficult for parental figures to monitor their children’s consumption. Many children these days play violent video games constantly. We have access to video games on our home consoles, computers, televisions, smartphones, and tablets. Today it is easier than ever for a child to download a violent game over the internet and have access to it anywhere. Many families seem to be uninformed about the effects video game violence may have on their children.

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.