Children Who Answer the Call of Duty - Research Paper Example

HERE HERE YOUR HERE HERE Children Who Answer the “Call of Duty Are they Affected Poorly? INTRODUCTION The pc video game “Call of Duty” is an aggressive game that shows many images of violence and bloodshed. The animation shows military members fighting in World War II as they attempt to meet certain wartime objectives. It shows the military conducting rescues and executions as part of their war duties with very graphic pictures of death and brutality. There are some members of society that believe “Call of Duty” is simply a recreational tool that provides fun and enjoyment, making it a harmless gaming past-time. Some professionals and researchers believe that games such as this can provide long-term negative problems on younger game players, causing them to act more aggressively or violent. Regardless of what argument a person takes, “Call of Duty” should be an adult game that is only played by people over the age of 18 or young people who have reached the moral stage of development that understands right from wrong. BRUTAL VIDEO GAME CONTENT AND VIOLENCE A 1994 survey of young students, between fourth and sixth grades, showed that the longer a person plays a video game the more their personal empathy for others was reduced (Funk, Baldacci, Pasold & Baumgardner, 26). Empathy is the level of personal respect and emotional attachment that a person has to the needs of others in society. This study suggests that if a child were to play “Call of Duty” for a long period of time, and be exposed to ongoing brutal images, they will be likely to adopt personality traits that make them less caring about others. This theory offers that young people will become desensitized after prolonged periods, making them less teamwork focused and able to support others in the community with positive emotions. In my personal life, I have watched many young children playing violent video games, including “Call of Duty”. Some of these children were between the ages of eight and 17 years. I have seen children who get very involved with the content of the game, and will explode verbally when they fail to meet content targets or achieve the game’s goal. One young child, a family friend of age 12, actually would slam the computer mouse down on the counter and swear at the computer when playing the game. This was something that was not common with this child when in other social environments. This would add support to the idea that it can change the personality behaviors of children when they play the game over and over again. A normally content and non-explosive child who, when exposed to violent game play, begins to act uncontrollably and angry should be an alarm to some parents and guardians. Another study showed that violent video games also change altruistic personality traits in people. These traits include being humane and selfless as a member of the broader society. This study showed that people who played violent games had a longer response time when involved in an emergency than others who played nonviolent games (Conner, 8). The same study showed that people in a movie theater that had watched a violent film had slower response time when they saw a woman in distress than patrons who had watched nonviolent content (Conner, 8). This means that exposure to violence, in any kind of media form, will make people have less empathy for others and can be counted on much less to offer support to others in emergencies. In personal life, children are taught to respect their parents, school teachers, and any others in society that they come in contact with. It is a moral lesson that is reinforced from the time when they were just toddlers. Concepts such as respect, social dedication and ethics are part of the American culture. This means that these beliefs are very long-standing values that help to shape the identity of young children and build their personality traits. If a simple exposure to violent video games or violent films can instantly change how they view others in society and their value, this means they have the ability to undo years of ethical teaching provided by parents. This, too, should be a major cause of concern to parents. I have often witnessed children acting out video games after they have been played. Even when the game is completed and they have moved on to different tasks, they are still making gunfire noises or singing the music from the games’ backgrounds. Several months ago, a young child of about the age of nine was visiting our household with his mother. While his mother was discussing her issues with the family, the child had been playing a violent video game on his portable device. Several times the child cursed out loud, making his mother take the game away from him because she was embarrassed while she was trying to carry on a conversation. The child began punching her and kicking her in the legs, pretending to be shooting at her with his fingers pointed into an imaginary gun. I remember his mother saying I’m sorry, he never acts like this as she tried to control his behavior. This got me to thinking about some of the recent studies I had read about how violent content can manage to change personality negatively. A child that never punches and kicks his mother in public, and who does so after just playing violent video games, should be a warning for all of society about the dangers of these games for young people. In regards to “Call of Duty”, “because of the war setting, bad language and bloody violence are prevalent throughout the game” (Jones, 1). This might have something to do with why young children verbally lash out when they reach difficult points in the game, as they have modeled the language activities of the animated characters. Even though it is realistic and an attempt to give others the sense of actually being in a war situation, the language associated might be acting as a bad teacher. It could be giving youths the impression that they can verbally assault others because they witness all of the characters doing the same thing in most scenes. This has been the most common situation that I have found personally. Young children often say things that are highly inappropriate when playing violent video game content. “Call of Duty” has some very graphic language when soldiers talk to one another or when they are speaking with their beaten enemies. Even though the children may not want to act out the actual violent behaviors, they are clearly motivated to be more verbally aggressive when hearing more and more of the bad language within the game. Psychologists believe that “regular exposure to games like these actually rewires a child’s brain, making them more amenable to violence” (gamepolitics.com, 2). This means that when the child plays the game consistently over time, the game’s content will create physical and measurable changes to how the brain structures its thinking patterns. This idea offers that the actual brain changes that will have long-term impacts on thought processing. In society, there is a great deal of concern about issues of security and keeping the peace to avoid violence against citizens. “Call of Duty” gives players the ability to plot terrorist-style attacks against different civilian characters. If seeing these images gives children the physical brain connections that link violence with non-ethical beliefs, there might be concerns about home-grown terrorism where youths think that they can act aggressively against anyone they wish. If these brain connections really are being formed at the neural level, then these thoughts could be carried well into adulthood and could have been prevented by limiting their video game exposure early on. Here is how one author describes violent video games such as “Call of Duty”, “You see that you get extra points for shooting somebody in the head as opposed to shooting them in the body. You have to wonder exactly what are the values we’re teaching our children” (licc.org.uk, 2). Games such as these reinforce that you get a better game status if you accomplish a shot in the right place. In real life, a gunshot wound in the head is more likely to be fatal than a leg injury. If children are having their neural connections physically changed through regular exposure, they might be developing the idea that one should shoot to kill if they are ever assaulted. This could cause problems in schoolyards or other youth social environments when small-scale conflicts begin out of simple misunderstandings. If someone challenges them verbally, they may draw on these lessons learned from games like “Call of Duty” and look for ways to kill rather than simply assault verbally or aggressively. It is perhaps the violent video game content that continues to make it more common for young people to carry guns and other brutal weapons even in the school environment. I believe that it is the responsibility of parents and guardians to identify that these games are merely fantasy and to act out what they see on the computer is morally and ethically wrong. I have personally seen parents let their children play any game they wish while going about their regular business. They often do not seem concerned about what is being said in the game or who the children might be speaking with, such as when playing “Call of Duty” on the personal computer. Parents who today allow the games to act as values teachers might be creating tomorrow’s social monsters that do not understand right from wrong and learn to solve their conflicts through fatal behaviors. STAGES OF MORAL AND ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT Children between the ages of two and seven years are in the preoperational stage of development. This is offered by Jean Piaget, a psychologist. Children at this stage are very impressionable and often engage in fantasy play, such as suggesting that a cardboard box has become their castle (Morris & Maisto, 377). This stage also has children using symbolic gestures, such as using an imaginary sword to slay a fake dragon (Morris & Maisto, 377). Because children are very impressionable about fantasy situations, they are likely going to try to act out these same behaviors they see in “Call of Duty”. They may begin using fake guns to shoot fake citizens, allowing their fantasy play to become too much of their reality. This youth group should not play “Call of Duty” because they tend to model observed behaviors and act them out without the knowledge to understand it is just fantasy. I have witnessed many young children of this age performing symbolic gesturing and fantasy play as a regular part of their lifestyles. When parents attempt to stop these behaviors, they often lash out at their caretaker or cry for an ongoing period. If they being acting out fantasy play based on what they’ve observed on the computer game, their responses might be much more aggressive and hostile. This stage of development is too impressionable for games with unethical content because it could cause long-term disciplinary problems for parents or educators. However, older children have a better grasp of ethics and morality than younger youths in the preoperational stage. They can classify complicated concepts and think abstractly (Morris & Maisto, 378). This means they have the knowledge and brain chemistry to think clearly and rationalize their decision making. Children over the age of 11, especially as they get closer to adulthood, fit this category. Though this does not mean that some young people over the age of 11 would not be tempted to act out what they’ve seen, it offers hope that this group might be able to play the games longer without long-term negative consequences. If young people between 11 and 17 can begin to develop rules, theories, and understand principles, they can understand cause and effect based on their behaviors. This is some hope that playing “Call of Duty”, at least for the over-11 social group, might not lead to devastating outbursts of bad behavior. When comparing personal experience between players under the age of 10 and those who are in their teenage years, it is usually the younger child who gets more heated during game play. Older people seem to be able to take their losses or have their brutal fun and then forget about these activities once the game is completed. It is not common to see teenagers using fantasy play, meaning that they are a low-risk group when playing “Call of Duty” on an ongoing basis. This is, at least, when compared to younger children who tend to model what they see and have difficulty seeing things from the point of view of others. CONCLUSION “Call of Duty” is most definitely a violent video game that has images of bloodshed, violence, and acts of terrorism. It is meant to be a form of role play for adult players that have the skills and brain chemistry to understand right from wrong and want only a recreational tool. The more time a young person plays these games, the more they seem to become unaware of their obligations toward being part of social harmony. They respond slower to emergencies and will leave a person in distress without help for much longer than those who play nonviolent content. This should be of high concern for the fields of sociology and psychology. If empathy is reduced and desensitization occurs, along with physical brain changes, there could be long-lasting consequences to the individual. “Call of Duty” should only be played by adults or young people over the age of 11. It should not be a tool for children who fit the category of preoperational because they simply cannot think abstractly. They cannot understand right from wrong and will often act out what they have observed unless they are given a moral lesson about separating fantasy from reality. It is because it is difficult for this age group to see things from the point of view of others that makes them such a high risk group. The game content in “Call of Duty” has too many violent images and inappropriate language to be used by any impressionable youth. My personal experience supports the research findings. Some of tomorrow’s violence problems might be solved by simply limiting youth exposure to violent video games such as “Call of Duty” and preventing brains from being rewired with thoughts of brutality. Works Cited Conner, Alana. “The Violent Death of Benevolence”. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2009. Vol. 7, Iss. 3, p.8. Viewed April 26, 2010 at www.proquest.com. Funk, J., H. Baldacci, T. Pasold & J. Baumgardner. “Violence exposure in real-life, video games, television, movies, and the Internet: Is there desensitization?”. Journal of Adolescence, 2004. Vol. 17, pp.23-39. Viewed April 27, 2010 at www.elsevier.com/locate/jado Gamepolitics.com. “Videogames & Violence Go Together like Cigarettes & Lung Cancer”, 2010. Viewed April 26, 2010 at http://www.gamepolitics.com/taxonomy/term/261/0 Jones, Greg. “Video Game: Call of Duty: World at War”. Viewed April 26, 2010 at http://www.youthministry.com/files/CallofDuty-WorldatWar-3D%20Review.pdf Licc.org.uk. “Video Game Violence”. Youthwork Magazine, 2003. Viewed April 26, 2010 at http://www.licc.org.uk/uploaded_media/1233658393-video_game_violence.pdf Morris, Charles G. & Albert A. Maisto. Psychology: An Introduction, 12th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2005. Read More