Violent Video Games - Essay Example

Violent Video Games With the improvement of computer technology, history records that the video game industry is now over 30 years old. Video games were recognized in 1980 when teachers especially in the United States of America pushed the government so that they can get computers into the classroom. They argued that, video games and computers have positive effects on the academic aspect of the students and providing a platform for learning. There are different violent games which children play for instance “Saints’ Row the Third”. In this game players are encouraged to go outside and do bad things to the innocent people. The other game is “The Dead Space 3”; in this game the player kills the alien creature using an assortment weapon this video game is extremely violent and bloody. The third violent game is the “God of War” in this game the player kills every creature that comes his or her way. “Shadows of the Damned” is another violent game which involves demon hunters in this game there is a lot of sex jokes and intense profanity. The demons in this game engage in self mutilation they pull out and eat their own beating hearts. With this information on violent games, the essay, argumentatively shows how violent video games can negatively affect young children who play them. Research has shown that, many young people especially adolescent spend most of their time playing video games. Recent research shows that, girls spend approximately 5 hours playing video games while young men spend approximately 13 hours in a day playing violent video games. Due to this, video gaming is a multibillion dollar company bringing more cash to the company in question than movies and DVD’s. Playing video games has adverse effects especially to the players. This is because they spend most of their time sitting down playing video games. It may result to cases of obscenity because the children are not involving themselves in physical activities (Jamieson, Patrick & Daniel 425). Research has shown that, young men are affected more health wise than girls because they spend most of their time playing video games than girls do. Video games are easily accessed on the internet so young people play online with unknown adults and peers. According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, their research on violent video games effect on children shows that, video games make the kids impressionable. This is because these children involve themselves in playing video games at an age in which teenage brains are in the midst of growing. In this stage, the teenagers are wiring the circuits of relationship, self control and responsibility. This means that, what they acquire from the violent video games they carry it to adulthood. This becomes their way of life and they do not see anything wrong in practicing what they see in the violent video games. Research has shown that, video games activate the anger of the young kids this is as a result of playing the violent video games (Anderson et al 39).Video games dampen the brain conscience and children only think violence is the only way to survive. Thus do not even care about hurting people because their brain is dampened by the violent video games. Another research group the American Psychological Association after their research, they observed that, playing video games makes the children less caring and helpful especially towards their age mates. Children play violent video games at a stage in which they are supposed to learn how to relate to the members of the society positively or in the correct manner. At this stage they are also supposed to learn how to solve conflicts once they arise, but when they dedicate most of their time playing the violent video games they do not even learn how they should learn to leave peacefully with the members of the society. As a result of this, even in their adult life they do not even know how to solve conflicts once they arise leading to misunderstanding among the members of the society. Children may always think that violence is the acceptable way of life (Jamieson, Patrick & Daniel 120). Video games do not teach the children moral consequences. For instance, once they shot a person while playing the games they do not receive death penalty who they are not jailed in any case but on the contrary they earn more points and they proceed to the next level. This means that, the kids may end up practicing the same thing to the outside world. This makes the kids not to accept the reality of life that they should not hurt who shoot anyone (Meyer 204). In addition, the kids develop anger so once they are wronged by anybody they develop a way on how to revenge. They do not even understand that forgiveness exists the major on revenge. This is evident even in schools among the students once they do not like a certain teacher they look for a way to poison who punish him or her. This is because the violent video games do not teach them that, there are moral consequences which they will undergo when they practice certain evils towards the members of the community. In addition, the language used in the video games is most of the time aggressive, foul and obscene (Jamieson, Patrick & Daniel 423). This means that they use the foul language even to communicate with their age mates and sometimes even to communicate with their parents. They also use the violent language towards the adults especially the teachers and parents. They may also bring distractions in the class because of their obscene language. In some situations you find that, the kid does not use any other language apart from the obscene language that he or she gets from playing the video games. A kid may grow up without even knowing how to communicate with people apart from using the foul language. This impacts negatively on the social life of the kid because of the use of the obscene language many people may not be willing to associate with that kid. Because of the use of the aggressive language it becomes hard for the kid to know how to control his or her anger resulting in aggressive behaviors. Notably, video games increase the child's rate of aggression (Meyer 449). This is according to American Psychological Association. They record that violent video games tend to resolve anxiety by externalizing it. That means, instead of the kids calming down, soothing themselves or talking about the problem which they have, and expressing the problem to someone or expressing it emotionally by crying they externalize it by playing the violent video games. Research has shown that there is an increase in violent responses especially to the kids who play the video games. This means that, the video games increase the kids’ response to the violent actions. This is shown by how some kid act violently by kicking walls once they are angered which may make the kid to be hurt instead. The kids may also be mean to pets like dogs and cats they may decide to attack it. Research has shown that, video games result to insults, accidental violence and verbal insults. This is because young people spend most of their time playing the video games hence they absorb the language that is used in the video games and apply it to their daily lives. As earlier stated, most young people spend three quarters of their day playing video games by so doing, they absorb more of what they see in the video games. Some of the games such as “Shadows of the Damned” use obscene language that means more exposure to this game affect the moral standards of the child in question. A recent research done in 2003 indicates that a child who plays violent games experiences approximately 138 aggressive exchanges. This means that the child absorbs in aggressive and violent language which affects his or her moral stand (Anderson et al 91). The video games company is credited for marketing violent content to the children more than any other entertainment industry for instance television. This means that, the more time children spend playing video games they are affected negatively. Violent video games affect the mindset of and the child in question. This is because the child may only think of ways to involve him or herself in violent activities. That is why some of the kids in their teenage stage decide to form gangs to implement what they see in the video games. They kill people in the community causing a lot of harm to the members of the society (Anderson et al 145). In addition, as stated earlier, the young teenagers may not understand how to solve conflicts. Once they cause deaths of several people and they are jailed they may never understand if they did something wrong until they are taken to the rehabilitation centers to be taught on the reality of life. The video games are very addictive especially to the children this means that, the kids may end up spending most of their time playing video games hence affecting their academic life. Research has shown that, kids who spend most of their time playing video games they get lower grades in class work. This is because the time they are supposed to spend revising their work they spend it playing a violent video game which affects their academic performance (Meyer 36). Some kids may also decide not to attend their classes and spend their time playing the most recent violent video game. This means that, they may never get the concept which the teacher wanted to pass to them even if they read on their own this results to failure among the students. Poor performance results to low self esteem this means that the kid may not socialize with the other members of the society as required because of the low self esteem. As the child grows up he or she feels that he has been set aside by the members of the society. As a result of the low self esteem and lack of confidence in the academic world and also lack of recognition. The child may decide to come up with ways of how to gain recognition among the members of the society especially among his or her peers. This means using the little knowledge that he or she has on different issues. Because he or she does not have the academic knowledge he or she may decide to use what he or she absorbs from the violent video games to gain recognition. This is evident by how some children involve themselves in cruel behaviors such as strikes. The kid may influence the other children to attack the administration. By attacking the administration the kid feels that he or she is a hero just as he or she sees heroes while playing the video games. The violent video games only teach the kid on acts of destruction thus the child may decide to destroy what comes in or her way (Anderson, Craig, Douglas & Katherine 24). Because video games to not install good moral values the child gains bad moral values to the extent of disrespecting the administration even his or her parents. Recent research has shown that, for the young people to involve themselves in the violent activities they involve themselves in drug abuse (Jamieson, Patrick & Daniel 457). This is because they look for the abnormal powers found in the violent video games and for them to do the actions that they see in the violent video games they have to be under the influence of drugs. Thus they ensure that they abuse drugs to regain the power. In one of the video games the actors in the game mutilate their bodies. Some of the young people have mutilated their bodies to respond to what they see in the video games. For instance, young people have permanent tattoos on their bodies this is to respond to what they see in the video games and to feel that they are also heroes in that area of specialization. Because they believe that heroism comes hand in hand with practicing what they see in the video games. Negative effects of the video games result from their negative interactive nature. As earlier stated, kids are rewarded for being violent. This means the one who kills more people becomes the hero this means that, violent video games install the negative perspective contrary to the nature. The violent activities such as killing, shooting, kicking and stabbing are evident in the kids’ eyes. The Institute of Technology in their research found out that, teenagers are emotionally affected by the video games. As a result of this, most teenagers practice violet activities because they spend most of their time playing the violent video games. As earlier stated, video games make the children to be socially isolated this is because they spend less of their time interacting with the family and friends they only spend time playing the video games because they are addictive in nature. The video games confuse the kids from reality to fantasy. They end up living in a world of their own because they believe what they see happens in reality. That is why most of them do not even attend their class work thinking that they will achieve their dreams in life through fantasy (Meyer 216). A paper published in 2012 in Psychological popular media culture evidently showed that violent video game affects a child's long term concentration. This means that the child will only be able to concentrate in fewer hours. This negatively affects his or her academic life leading to poor performance. This is because the games improve the child’s ability to concentrate in short periods of time affecting his or her long time concentration (Meyer 150). This means that, the violent video game affects the cells that improve long term concentration of a child. That is why children who spend a lot of their time on video games concentrate less in class and involve themselves in the fantasy world. A teacher may be teaching on the other hand the child may be fantasying on different issues of life especially issues concerning violence. This makes the kid not to understand the concept which the teacher wanted to pass to the kid. This is reflected in the final result where the kid may perform poorly because of lack of concentration in class work. This is because research presents that playing video games affects the brain hence poor performance. On the other hand, some scientist and psychologists say that video games actually have many benefits especially making the kid smart in his or her academic. This is because they claim that, violent video games teach a kid high level thinking which is of great help to the child’s academic life. The university of Wisconsin psychologist states that, violent video games change the physical brain structure the same way playing the piano does. Research as shown that, playing video games improves the ability of the child. The skills that are gained in playing violent video games include following instruction and problem solving and logic. This is because while playing video games the child learns how to follow instructions so that he or she may become a hero when playing the games. Playing the video games enhances the creativity of a child thus helping him or her to think in a wider scope (Jamieson, Patrick & Daniel 383). Children who play the games and win them have good hand eye coordination. This is a good skill that helps them in class work especially in sciences. This is because the child is supposed to know how to aim at a certain gun shoot this requires the ability to coordinate between the people to shoot in the game this improves a child accuracy which is important the academic sector (Meyer 174). Research has shown that, children who play video games have better surgical skills. This is because of their great eye and hand coordination. Research has also shown that, most fighter pilots of today obtained their skills through playing the violent video games. This is because of their high rate of coordination. The violent video game also helps the child to be able to multitask. This is because in the game the child is able to learn how to quickly and flexibly know how to change the tactics in a game. This enables a child to learn how to multitask as he or she grows up in life. Because we are living in a high-tech sophisticated world, the violent video games are important tools that introduce the kid to the computer technology and the online world. The computer game enables the child to comfortably adapt to the computing skills. Computer games attract children because of this, kids may decide to come together and play the computer games. This brings children together which may be a nice bonding session for the kids to learn from each other and have fun together. Video games help the kid to be able to learn how to make decisions at a first rate (Anderson et al 42). Violent video games accelerates decision making spend among the kids this is because kids who play computer games are able to make decisions faster by 25 percent the kids who do not play violent video games. Notably, violent video games increase a child’s self-esteem and confidence especially if he or she is a mastery of the violent video games (Meyer 237). This is because he or she feels that he is ahead of his fellow peers hence raising his or her confidence. This goes to an extent in the academic work because the child is able to master the mathematical concepts accurately. The academic benefit flows to the accuracy in reading especially in languages. While playing the games, the kid takes more risks and explores some of the areas. The kid may end up applying this to normal life situations hence becoming advantages to him or her. Some games involve multiples’ this fosters strong relationship among the children involved in the playing field. Playing violent video games induces reasoning and hypothesis testing. This means that, the kid is able to understand how to solve problems, especially academically. One of the professors equates solving a violent game to a serious scientific problem. The ability to solve the problems depends on the child tactics. In conclusion, according to the essay above based on adequate research, it is evident that the negativities on playing the violent video games outweigh the positives. This means that the violent video games affect the child negatively. This is evident by the child’s performance and the inability to be able to socialize with the family members and his or her own age mates. The violent video game makes a child to become aggressive while dealing with the other members of the society. In addition, because of the addictive aspect of the violent video games kids end up spending a lot of their time playing the violent video games hence forsaking their class work which results to failure among the students. It is important for the parents to understand how violent video games affect the behavior of their children, hence they should regulate the time which their kids spend on playing the violent video games. In addition they should be selective in the types of video games that their children play. Work cited Anderson, Craig A, et al. Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Internet resource. Ferguson and Christopher J. Adolescents, Crime, and the Media: A Critical Analysis. New York, NY: Springer, 2013. Internet resource. Jamieson, Patrick E, and Daniel Romer. The Changing Portrayal of Adolescents in the Media Since 1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Internet resource. Meyer, Bente. Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Games-Based Learning: The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark, 21-22 October 2010. Reading: Academic Publishing, 2010. Print. Read More