Children and Violent Video Games Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Children and Violent Video Games - Essay Example Such video games are too dangerous of a nature to be shown to children, who do not have much awareness of the world and who can take any sort of meanings from such acts that they see. To be able to grasp and be limited to only enjoying any acts of violence that are shown, the mind needs to be old enough. If exposed to these factors before time and before age, various meanings can be extracted and major changes can take place in the personality of a child. Whether it is the visuals which depict such violence or the increase in bonus points in a video game that take place when the child "kills" a villain, the effect is bound to be there on these young and innocent minds. These video games are a newer medium as compared to the television and movies which also are a source of violence acts for young minds. The most popular past time for children is that of playing video games. Children, and especially boys, often indulge in video games which are depicting acts of violence and which require the player to contribute to that violence through the joystick or the mouse that he or she is using to control the game. Such usage of the joystick or mouse inculcates such habits within children. When children see in a video game that they are rewarded and their points increase or they are given a bonus whenever they kill a person or whenever they injure the other party, children feel that such acts will always be positively rewarded, whether it is real life. Children feel that when they will hurt someone, use harsh language, or use violence to deal with a specific situation in life, they will be positively rewarded like they were in the video game. The research of Dr. Anderson and Dr. Gentile has stated that boys spend an average of 13 hours per week on video games, whereas the fairer sex spends around 5 hours per week on the video games. This research also says that half of the video games in the market actually result in the real life deaths and acts of violence that takes place. Social implications The social implications of children and teen playing these violent games are that they inherit the same violence in their personality. Socially, they become destructive human being. There is more of negativity in their personality rather than optimism. Whatever fights they will encounter in their life, whatever circumstances they will face, they will want to deal with it through violence and settle it in their favor through any violent means possible. Since these games have rewarded them not just points, but bonus points as well as non-point bonuses like new weapons, they assume that life will also reward them similarly. Therefore, such a man is added to the society who would not believe in handling situations in a peaceful manner, rather he would deal the aggressive way. (Krug, 2002) For example there is a game known as Postal, in which acts of violence are a common sight. People are crying for mercy, masses lie on the ground moaning, there can be blood seen everywhere, killings are happening as a common routine, there are dead bodies lying all around, and people are screaming for help. But