The Effects of Violence Video Games on Children Behavior - Essay Example

The increased involvement of the people in the playing of video games has portrayed the negative effects that they can lead to. This is particularly true of violent video games as there has been a strong association between the playing of violent video games and increase in crime amongst youths. It has been analyzed that the playing of violent video games has resulted in many criminal acts which include robberies as well as murders. This paper will serve to explain the history of these violent video games and their strong association with acts of crime that have taken place owing to the negative impact of these violent video games.

There has been a great rise in the popularity of video games and the number of people playing these games has widely increased. It is believed that children of the age group from 8 to 18 years in the United States have an exposure of 40 hours out of seven days to different forms of media. There has been a sharp increase in the exposure to video games by the children and the teenagers. It has been analyzed that children even as young as two years play video games on an average of one hour every day.

In the age group of 8 to 13 year old boys, it has been seen that they tend to play video games for more than approximately 7.5 hours in a single week. Another very important aspect that has been highlighted is that a research among teenagers explained the fact that the games that they purchased were not reviewed and analyzed by their parents and hence there is no check on the nature of the video games that are played by these children (Anderson et al 2001). It has been found out that 75 percent of the teenagers actually purchase and play video games that are meant for adults and these games have very high content of violence and negativities portrayed in them (Adams, 2010).

The extent of the violence exposure has been explained by the statistics in a study which shows that in the United States, the young generation is exposed to 40,000 killings by some form of media by the time they acquire the age of 18 years (Anderson 2005). The history of video games dates to the years following 1970. But the video game that became a matter of debate was the game which was named "Death Race 2000". This game was based upon a car which was to be driven over bodies that were made of sticks.

The game did not have good graphics but still the violent theme of the game sparked many debates. The last decade of the twentieth century came with many new games which were far more violent than the Death Race. These games included Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Wolfenstein 3D and Night Trap. All these games were based on violent themes. The Mortal Kombat was particularly a game which received much attention and became the favorite of young children. It was based solely on killing the opponents.

This led to major controversies and the matter became a national issue. The matter also reached the Senate and a prominent member from the Senate Joe Lieberman presented the idea that restrictions should be imposed on video games. Night Trap was removed voluntarily by the shop owners following these issues and the video game industry also became aware that such games could result in blows to their industry. Thus, the video game industry formed a body which is termed as Entertainment Software Rating Board in the year 1994 to check on the violent and sexual material of the