VIDEO GAMES

Video Games and Youth Violence

Video Games and Youth Violence

With constant advances in technology, children are finding new ways of spending their afternoons. Instead of playing catch outside or riding their bikes to a neighbor's house, many children have resorted to sitting in front of a television and playing their favorite video game. Some people believe that video games do not have a serious effect on young children. However, research has repeatedly proven that violence in video games is having a negative effect on kids and the way they behave. Some of the games can increase a person's aggressive thoughts and make them behave very violently. Video games provoke violent thoughts and actions as the games are becoming too graphic for the kids and they're giving them knowledge about the utilization of guns and fighting skills. The video games are making kids act out violent crimes and making them very aggressive because sometimes they think it's acceptable to do what the characters do. Violent video games also have an immediate effect on a child's mood, mind, and their brain development.

Video games first came out in the 1970s. Later on video games lead to a preferred childhood leisure activity and many kids were very addicted to them. (Funk, 1993) There were many preferences of video games such as violent games, educational games, sport games, etc. But the most preferred type of game was violent games. Many kids enjoyed playing violent games because they were very entertaining to play and there was a lot of action and excitement in them. Also it was a rush for the kids to shoot people and blow things up. In a study that was done, which researched video game playing among 357 seventh and eighth grade students? The kids were asked to pick their favorite type of video game among five categories. The category that was most preferred was games that involved violence. Nearly 32% of the kids said they liked violent video games over any other type of game. Less than 2% of the children enjoyed playing educational games. (Funk, 1993) The reason the students gave for liking violent video games more was that there is so much action in them and you can never get bored.

Although video games are designed to be entertaining, challenging, and sometimes educational, most include violent content and many have very explicit graphics. The problem is that even though they are games, the ones involving shooting can teach some real skills about using weapons. A person who becomes good at handling a pistol or shotgun to kill fake enemies on a television screen can very easily turn those skills onto real people. And, in the process of playing the game, one becomes desensitized to the horror of real killing. Thus, if the killing ever does become real, it is carried out with a complete lack of empathy for the victims. There was an analysis done which showed that 89% of games showed some sort of violence (Children Now), and that almost ...