Video Games and Violence

As children and adolescents, people try desperately to figure out who they are and what their role in society is. In this sensitive and critical point in their lives, it is crucial that they do not get the wrong view of roles in society. One way that children learn roles is throughout childhood play. What do many children do for play?

Play video games.

Video games are one means of giving children the wrong view of roles in society. Just like any other form of mass media, video games have become instruments in developing the identities of children (Dietz).

The roles they learn from these games influence their outlook on:

·         different personality traits

·         gender role expectations

·         violence

The Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior. 2011. Section 02 & 03 F11 Psy 1001Web. 2 Nov 2012.

In this post, I’m going to focus on violence. Instead of passively viewing violence, such as in television, the children are actively involved in it. Video games most often portray men with a stereotypical gender role, as a sexually aggressive figure who fights for the girl, probably using violence.

Young boys play the roles of this character and get tied up in it. They play these games and see this image of a man and believe that the image they see is the image they should become. Their role in play and their role in the game shapes their identity as they figure out their role in society. The players may start acting more aggressively as they try to fulfill the role as a “successful man” (Ferguson).

Some people argue that video games are good because:

·         they are an essential source of intrinsic reinforcement

·         they can help those who play them to improve hand-eye coordination

(Loftus and Loftus).

It is true that they can help reinforcement. However, what they are reinforcing is not always beneficial to them because there is more being reinforced than is blatantly obvious. Even if they have a good message to them in general, there are subthemes that are being engrained into their minds and having a negative effect on them.

It is also true that they improve hand-eye coordination. However, there are much better activities that also improve hand-eye coordination and do not have negative impacts on their socialization.

Video games are negatively impacting the youth of today and their perception of the world as they grow up. And violence is only the beginning.

Chelsea Zollinger

The Isolation of Video Games

In an August 2011 New York Times article titled “The Kids Are Not All Right,” Joe Bakan wrote, “A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study reports that children spend more hours engaging with various electronic media -- TV, games, videos and other online entertainments -- than they spend in school." This simple statement makes a powerful impact--are the children of America spending more time plugged into the tv than they are at school? 
Since children’s primary opportunities for socializing occur at school, it’s a likely possibility that they really do spend more time with virtual friends than with real ones. Excessive video game use may be encouraging or even creating antisocial behavior in children. Parents, teachers, friends, and siblings need to combat this by making an effort to spend time with the children in their lives, enabling the kids to learn good social skills and acceptable behaviors.

updatednews.ca

            Everyone is affected by an overuse of video games, but children are especially susceptible. What children learn during their first several years of life is critical to their ability to develop and grow in a normal way. If, during this important time, they spend more time playing video games than they do socializing with others people, like family members, it will negatively affect the way they are able to befriend and interact with others. We’re going to end up with a generation of children with excellent hand-eye coordination and no social skills whatsoever.

Winmentalhealth.com

          It would be dangerous to oversimplify this issue, since different forms and types of video games promote and teach different things. But it would also be dangerous to assume that educational video games can take the place of personal relationships. In light of new research in support of educational video games, it becomes increasingly easy to let children spend more and more time in front of a screen, cut off from all others forms of human life. Despite the potential educational value of some video games, children need to spend time with others to create a healthy balance in their developing lives and susceptible minds.

photobucket.com

The Future of Children, a website published by Princeton University, has posted some interesting research on this topic and related subjects. In one online journal titled “Children and Electronic Media,” Barbara J. Wilson wrote, “Some media messages can teach children positive, pro-social lessons, while others can lead children to be fearful or even to behave antisocially.” Based on this information, it’s safe to say that the amount of time children spend playing video games needs to be carefully monitored and balanced with plenty of interaction with other people.

While video games can teach children everything from math and science to coping mechanisms and friendship, an overabundance of electronic face time can rob children of valuable social learning experiences and harm their ability to progress. 

By Katherine Cutchins