A recent study just came out and said that 97% of American kids play video games. They also said that an astounding 99% of boys play and 94% of girls do. This asks the question…how much is too much? A separate study was also conducted and they concluded that on the weekdays, male gamers play for about 58 minutes while females play for 44 minutes. However, on the weekend the males played for 1 hour and 37 minutes and the females for 1 hour and 4 minutes. Personally, I don’t think that these number are really that bad because if you break them down it’s basically an average of a little over 10 minutes a day on the weekdays and around 40 minutes on Saturday and Sunday. However, these averages take into account those that play very little and those that play for hours a day, so there are obviously those who have a problem with how much they play.
Another problem with video games is the first person shooter games contributing to violence in kids today. Games like Grand Theft Auto pollute the kid’s minds with drugs, prostitutes, alcohol, and killings. There was a study at Indiana University where they tried to gage how much of an effect on emotions violent video games had. Their results were that there was increased activity in the part of the brain that controls emotions in children who played the violent video games. This proves the point that violent video games in fact contribute to the child’s emotions and possibly violent attitude in some ways. So the question in the end is…how much is too much? and what type of games should they be playing?
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Violent video games might not be as much of a problem as people think they are. Look at the rating on the game. M for mature means only those who are 17 and older should be playing. The problem is when you have a 10 year old who can't grasp the concept of a video game. This desensitizes children to death and makes it seem like almost a regular occurence. People our age might be able to handle video games like this, but a young child cannot; and that's why they rate games. Video games aren't the problem. Bad parenting is the problem. Parents should censor what goes into their child's brain and know the effects of playing a video game like that. Video games take the blame and criticism from parents for increased violence and aggression, but maybe these parents should look in the mirror and see that they might actually be the problem.
ReplyDeleteVideo games do have an effect on children, whether individuals want to acknowledge it or not. Boys play with toy guns because they see it on television and in video games, and the seriousness of the damage an actual gun could do is numbed. Guns become just another toy, nothing serious.
ReplyDeleteThe Columbine High School Massacre, took place on Tuesday April 20, 1999 in Colorado, Ohio. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the shooters, were fans of video games such as Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. Harris even created levels for Doom that were broadly dispersed, and can still be found online today. When the teenagers were arrested and banned from their computers, they became homicidal and began documenting plans to attack the school. Analysts are convinced that Harris’s and Klebold’s problem was desensitization, because of their constant exposure to sadistic imagery in video games.
In addition, Jodi Picoult’s novel Nineteen Minutes, Peter Houghton, one of the central characters, commits an act of violence that forever alters the lives of the town’s residents: a school shooting. What inspired him? A video game. He had created a video game, HIDE-N-SHRIEK, with himself as the shooter. The game then in turn inspired him to actually go forth and recreate this video game in real life. I am not saying that the video game directly caused the shooting, Houghton obviously had other personal problems, but it did instigate it.
I understand not all video games are horrible, for not all contain violence. I also understand that not every person who plays video games is going to become a mass murderer. However, the hours spent playing video games and obsession individuals have with them need to be monitored more closely.
When I was younger a played video games as much as any little boy did. However, those were games on the very first nintendo such as super mario and duck hunt where the violence was pretty minimal. The older I got however, the more violent the games became. By the time I was about 12-13 I was playing 007 every other day with my best friend.
ReplyDeleteI like video games, and I have a lot of friends that play video games. These include Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and Modern Warfare. These people play for hours at a time, and do it daily. Furthermore, they have not turned into violent people. I think that violence in video games can contribute to real life violence, but there are many more factors that need to be called into consideration. What is the family life like of these people who turn to gun violence? Are these people bullied in school? From personal experience, I am just not sure that a video game can have such a negative effect on a person.
I was not aware of the percentages of kids who played video games. In fact, I had no idea that 94% of girls played. To me I always thought of video games as a "boys hobby". I myself have played once or twice but I would by no means call myself a regular. Reading this blog post reminded me of a friend of mine. His parents weren't very strict- they only were when it came to video games and movies with violence. My friend was not allowed to see an R rated movie in his house until he was 17. He was also not allowed to own "violent video games" because his parents believed it would turn him into a serial killer. He was however, allowed to play star wars games (which were given a mature/teen rating) because he was killing aliens and not people. The thing about my friend was, he rebelled against his parents because of this. He went out and secretively bought Call of Duty and snuck around to play it. He had to hide the game to keep it in his house.
ReplyDeleteAt first I found this kind of unreasonable. I mean he was 18 years old - shouldn't he have been able to make his own decisions. Then I thought about it some more. For one, he had a ten year old sister- I know if I saw footage from some of these games when I was ten, it would have made me very uncomfortable and scared.
I can't make assumptions on how this affected him because I haven't done the research. I'm sure he would have been fine had he been able to play the video games. However, there are always those kids that can't determine reality from the animated world.
Jodi Picoult's book 19 Minutes follows the story of a school shooting in which a boy can't tell the difference between his video game world and his real world, leading him to shoot his classmates. Although it is a fiction book, it raises some important points. I feel this issue needs to be addressed before it may be too late.
When video games are mentioned, it is always a matter of how much is too much and the violence in the games. Video games are aid to be overplayed by many children, but that limit of "too much" is different for everyone. I believe it to be over the limit when it interferes with certain necessities, such as school work, social life, family life, etc. When a child is able to complete all school and still play games, it is not too much. If When a child is able to interact with friends and maintain his social life while playing video games, it is not too much. And if a child can maintain communication with family members while playing video games, it is not too much. I feel that if a child is able to properly manage time between all necessary work and video games, it is not deemed "too much."
ReplyDeleteWhen in reference to violence in video games, I do not feel that there should be any controversy over it. Video games are rated and the rating refers to violence and what age seems necessary to play. These ratings do not allow children to buy the video games, so it is in the power of the parents to buy it. They only need to not buy the game and they would have no reason to complain. Secondly, parents have no right to complain because they usually buy the system for the children, which leads to the playing of violent games.
I believe that if parents moniter their child's game playing it should be fine and if they obey the ratings on each game. If they are rated M for 17 and older then it shouldn't be a big problem for them to be experiencing guns and violence in the game, because their brains and decision making is already developed and they should know right from wrong already. I dont think that 6-10 year olds should be playing that game because they could get ideas that will affect their entire lives. But that is why games are rated.
ReplyDeleteSome video games can be educational. Now they are making games for younger children that teach them the ABC's and numbers because games and technology is becoming so big in the world today. As society advances so do the games and there is new ones everyday. As long as each age group is playing the appropriate game, it shouldn't be a huge issue.
I don't believe that any of the issues brought up about video games in this blog are really a concern for our society. I mean I'm not a video game person really but I like most other people enjoy the occasional playing of video games with some friends. The numbers of hours played by the average boys and girls was shocking to me in the sense that I thought it would be way more than it actually is.
ReplyDeleteAs for the violent gun games and sword games and any other violent games there are; it may contribute to some violence in the child's life but, the main culprit of violent influence comes from a child's home life and the media. The media is filled with violence and if a child is raised in a home that is controlled by violence then the child will become violent. Kid's have access to tons of violent movies on tv and even the internet now. The parents need to be the one's to monitor what their children are seeing and playing when it comes to video games. I just believe that a human has enough intelligence to realize what he or she is playing in a video game is not right so, I believe that it is the real life events that confuse children to think that those types of actions are socially acceptable.
What surprises me most about this article is the high percentage of girls that play video games. I was not aware that girls were known to play video games this frequently, it is not usually a stereotype associated with girls. An obsession with video games is usually a male generalization.
ReplyDeleteDespite this, excessive use of video games in our culture is having a negative affect on children with social skills and violence. Youth are becoming obsessive, unable to socialize with other kids and adults because they have their PSP or Nintendo DS permanently attached to their hand. They have become dependent on the technology to fulfill their desire for adventure or thrill, taking the easiest route, rather than pursuing real experiences. As children become more reliant on video games for entertainment and fun, they are losing necessary social skills and adequate socialization with their peers.
There is no doubt in my mind that video games contribute to violence. No children do not need to or are technically encouraged to reenact what they see in the video games, but it happens. Anyone that is present in my household at approximately three in the morning when my entire family is playing Halo, will no longer doubt the influence violent games have on emotions. Literally, screams fill the early morning air, its frightening. And how many times, when interacting with children, can we witness one child waving around a thumb and forefinger, in the shape of a gun? I don’t exactly think Disney movies have taken a pro-firearms political approach, or perhaps Cinderella changed her weapon of choice.
If children continue to become dependent on video games for entertainment and fun, than there is an increased probability they will grow to be incapable of proper socialization and become violent members of society.
I consider myself a hardcore gamer, so this may come out of bias, but I had to jump to the defense.
ReplyDeleteThere is a correlation, and perhaps causation, between video games and violence in children. I won't deny that. But it's virtually the same argument as it is for television. Watching certain TV shows will definitely make kids more prone to violence due to being impressionable.
That said, I think the fault here falls on the shoulders of parents. Just as there is a rating system for television, the Entertainment Software Review Board (ESRB) gives justified ratings to games. No child should be playing a game rated T for Teen, and certainly not a game rated M for Mature.
The developers of these more mature games are not to be blamed. These video games are not intended for children, so the only issue here is that parents are unknowingly buying games that are too mature for their children.
Just as it would be silly to ban R rated movies for the sake of children who aren't supposed to be watching them in the first place, we can't just expect T and M games to go away or go under the scrutiny of heavy censorship. This is all about parental control.
That does not mean video games should be altogether avoided by kids. There has been an increasing number of popular educational games on both the Nintendo DS and Wii. There's also plenty of non-educational (yet kid friendly) games out there that offer story telling as valid as any book, movie, or other medium.
I think that kids, especially younger children, should be kept away from violent games. At such a young age children are very impressionable and violence and crime is not something that they should be overly exposed to. Additionally, children playing video games for hours on end is not healthy either. I think that it is all about moderation. If a reasonable balance can be met in all aspects of video games then I see nothing wrong with video games.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matt that television shows also contribute to violence. It isn't just from playing the video games that kids become violent. There are enough video games that are appropriate for younger children that the parents should buy them those games and not the violent ones. The parents are the ones who have to judge if a video game rated M is really appropriate for their 10 year old kid. If you don't want your child playing it, then don't buy it for them. The companies aren't going to stop making violent video games because people that are older enjoy them. It is perfectly fine for teenagers to play these games, just keep younger kids away from them.
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