Violence in Video Games

Written by: sir_michael

Since1970, when Video Games were first introduced, there has always been the question. Are video games affecting our children, if yes, is it good or bad? One could say they are violent and cause our children to have behavior problems, another could say that video games are fun and entertaining and give us many needed skills, like problem solving-abilities, hand-eye co-ordination, pattern recognition, hypothesis testing, estimating skills, Inductive skills, resource management, logistics, mapping, memory, quick thinking, and Reasoned judgments. While this true, the behavior problems is not perfectly true, while some tests show it does make a difference, some tests show it doesn't.

Video games do include much controversial content, like violence or mild language or even sexual themes. About 85% of games contain this content, but, the real question is what does this do to our children? Well, there are many factors that influence this answer, like gender, age or level of education. Studies show that boys who are exposed to violent video games are not changed; they would still pick the more violent toy to play with, or act more aggressive. Girls on the other hand when exposed to violent games, seems to make the girls go for the more aggressive toys rather than the passive toys.

Younger children that are still in High School or Grade school are more likely to display if video games affected them, but adults who are attending Universities/Colleges or adults that have graduated, are equally affected. Younger children display it as a behavior problem, while adults will be more rushed in everything they do; also they will have a quicker heartbeat.

The level of education is defiantly influential. Younger children may get to play more because they have fewer responsibilities (e.g. homework), while older children may have less time to play them, but older children may still play them as much as younger children, except they will not do their homework or other responsibilities.

Video Games are also very anti-social, you do not talk to anyone, and you are alone, there are only two exceptions to this, when you play multi-player, or Party Games, or when you play online and talk to someone halfway across the world. Video games also limit you’re exercising, and less exercise along with eating a lot of junk food can cause obesity.

Some people are claming that video games are more like pieces of art. Especially as graphics become better and better, we are faced with the question of is it art…or is it a game. If it is art we run the possibility of censoring art...which isn’t a good thing. Many video games contain a storyline, and many video games storylines are compelling, they are sad or exciting. So video games are becoming more like art, which means if we censor video games, we are censoring art, which is wrong.

The video games industry is an important part to our economy, which means if video games are removed, there will be an unbalance, and that is not good, with most households in North America owning a video game console, if we remove that media source, there will be an uprising.

In closing, video games are good, in small doses…although some parents are determined to get rid of all violence in games, many people play violent video games and lead perfectly healthy happy lives. Using violent video games as an outlet for anger…besides, if all the violence was gone; we would only have Pac-Man (but apparently to some parents, even that is too violent!)

This article is the view of sir_michael, and does not reflect the view of the entire staff of Pink Ink or PPT.