Violent Video Games Essay Example for Free

Violent Video Games Essay Video games are becoming one of the favorite’s children all over the world. Every child could like to behave or act like an artist or actor whose acts are violent. The behavioral patterns of children have changed to violence and wherever they do something or any activity, they do it with a lot of violence, imitating what they saw on the video games. The world is breeding a generation of children who are violent which therefore means that the world in a few tears will be full of a generation of violent people. The minds of these children have also been changed and affected as the continued feeding into their minds with violent video games has made them to be different human beings all together. The sales of video games have grown drastically to a level which is alarming. The impact of excessive watching of the video games is clearly seen as to the way children are behaving and how they have been addicted to watching them. The hypothesis for this discussion could be â€Å"that the continued watching of violent games by the children has caused psychological problems in children and this has resulted to changes in their behavioral patterns. † Allowing the children the watch violent video games is infact doing injustice to them because it is one way of destroying them morally, socially and psychologically. An immediate action has to be taken and that a remedy must be found to protect these children from getting too much exposed to watching violent video games. For the children to grow up and develop into responsible adults in future, parents have the responsibility to find out and know what their children are watching and then take the necessary action. No parent could wish his/her child to be become violent or in any way that is against the good morals. The thesis should be supported because it is meant to protect the children from engaging themselves in watching violent video games that ultimately will influence them to change their morals and imitate bad ones. A research conducted by Anderson, C. A. , Bushman, B. J. (2001) on the Effects of Violent Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior concluded that the more children ere exposed to watching violent video games, the more there are likely to be affected psychologically . This thesis will help the parents and the guardians to be alert to check on what their children are watching and if they notice a strange behavior by their children, then they should be in a position to find out why and take the necessary action. In their book Dill, K. E. , Dill, J. C. (1998). Video Game Violence: A Review of the Empirical Literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior, they argue that parents have a major responsibility of knowing what their children are doing and watching. Failure to do so will be followed by worst consequences that will be their own making. The hypothesis will also give a background for further research on violent video games and their impact on the psychological development of the children. According to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and Life by Anderson, C. A. , Dill, K. E. (2000) they argue and urge that more research should be conducted in future to find out the psychological impacts on the children and more related issues should be brought in as the parents are the contributing factors to this issue because they also watch the violent video games with their children. There are those whom may not agree with the hypothesis may be because they have not been able to gather enough evidence or may be they feel and think that children are too young to be psychologically affected by watching violent video games. Children mostly like watching violent videos which shows acts of violence that they later practice. Parents have not been keen to check on what content their children are watching, but they are the first ones to complain about the behavioral changes of their children which are deviant, rude and violent. Over the past few years, several studies (Creasey, G. L. , Myers, B. J. 1986) have been carried on the psychological effects of violent video games on children. The majority of this research looked at the associations between video game use and the aggressive behavior and also on the effects of video games on school performance. Even though the video games are designed for entertaining, challenging and educational, most of them include the violent content. Recent research on video games indicates that as many as 89% of the games contain violent content and therefore, among the games that are purchased and played by the children contains violence. Playing violent video games increases the aggressive behaviors of children, increases their aggressive cognitions, their aggressive emotions, their physiological arousal and decreases their prosocial behaviors. These effects have psychologically affected the children and completely changed their behavioral patterns. Parents do not often put limits on how much time the children are allowed to play video games and how often the same parents checked on the contents of the video games. Even a few of them check the video content and found it to be violent, on a few occasions could deny their children from watching them. (American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, 2000) Children have perfected the best ways to convince their parents to buy for them the video games they could like to watch. They even convince their parents that the video games they are about to watch are not violent, to which their parents just accepts without any further investigation. The parents have been victims of violence meted against them by their own children who have become violent through watching violent video games. Children spend most of their time, especially during holidays to watch video games at the expense of their educational studies. The contents of the video games being played could certainly affect the relationship between the amount of their play time and their school performance. Children who use computers to play violent or non-violent video games perform more poorly in school, whereas those who use computers in performing school work performed better. This is clear indicator that excessive or continued watching of violent video games intoxicates the mind and changes the reasoning and concentration of children on educational maters (Dill, K. E. , Dill, J. C. 1998). Teachers in various schools are raising concern on the changed behavior patterns of the children. They are saying that the children have become rude, brutal and bullies amongst the other children and to the teachers. The children feel superior and muscular enough to respond to any fights. The boys are the majority victims than the girls, though girls are also interested in watching violent video games but not as boys. Boys quite often harass girls using the techniques they have watched, liked and imitated. They feel that they are mature enough and can behave exactly like what they watched on the video games. This makes them to forget that they are still young children whose minds have been tainted with violent materials (Van Schie, E. G. M. , Wiegman, O. 1997). Conclusion Children should not be allowed to watch violent video games when they are still young. This greatly affects their psychological development, changing their behavioral patterns. It is painful for parents and guardians when the children they are supposed to take care of become rude, violent, deviant and act as if they are criminals by dressing, way of speaking. It is their responsibility to make sure that whatever material their children watch has the right material content and teaches good morals. If the children will experience psychological problems through watching violent video games, even their academic performance will go down. The acts of violence copied by the children will be of negative impact to them, hence we will in future have a society which will be violent. Something must be done through concerted efforts to rectify the situation before it is too late. As children begin to see the world in aggressive terms and therefore begin to act aggressively, their personality changes to become more aggressive and hostile. These changes will result in increased opportunities for aggressive behavior, because of both changes in the individual’s personality and the changes in the situations the individual (child) is likely to get involved in as others react to the individual. This is all brought about by watching violent video games. Recommendations Several recommendations can be of great help and these include; the parents should play the video games with the children. From this they will be able to know what their children are exposed to watch and how they will react to different features in the game, parents should know their children, in that if a child becomes aggressive after watching violent video games, they should stop buying such games regardless the child’s age, parents should talk with the children if they sense that their children are disturbed after watching a violent video game. This could be an opportunity for the parent and the children to discuss more deeply on the video games, the parents should set limits for watching the video games. Infact they should censor the video games before the children watch them and the video game makers should be informed that the games they are making and selling for children to watch are more violent and bringing more harm to the children and so should make games that are children friendly. The teachers at school should also assist the parents in counseling the children who they discover that they have been victims of watching violent video games. If this has affected their class work, they should inform their parents so that they can look for a way forward together to help these children to return to normality. References American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, American Medical Association (2000). Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children Anderson, C. A. , Dill, K. E. (2000). Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Anderson, C. A. , Bushman, B. J. (2001). Effects of Violent Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A meta-analytic Review of the Scientific Literature. Psychological Science. Creasey, G. L. , Myers, B. J. (1986). Video Games and Children: Effects on Leisure Activities, Schoolwork, and Peer Involvement. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 32 Dill, K. E. , Dill, J. C. (1998). Video Game Violence: A Review of the Empirical Literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior Lynch, P. J. (1999). Hostility, Type A Behavior, and Stress Hormones at Rest and After Playing Violent Video Games in Teenagers. Psychosomatic Medicine Van Schie, E. G. M. , Wiegman, O. (1997). Children and VideoGames: Leisure Activities, Aggression, Social Integration, and School Performance. Journal of Applied Social Psychology.