Owen Bailey
Karen Morris
English 1102-XX
30 March 2011
Video Games: Fun or Fatal?
To get ahead in the game of life, someone must also begin to lose. Sometimes, certain industries begin to build into million dollar businesses and those industries may affect the way some people live, positively or negatively. The United States is advancing into a technologically adapted environment. With these advancements, the way entertainment is viewed will dramatically alter. When a place builds on technology, positive and negative effects will take place, changing the way a society lives forever. Positive outcomes will bring easier, faster, and more possibilities with different areas of work. The advancements should continue because technology helps the world become better. However, along with the great attributes, technology can cause great devastation. These negative effects should only teach citizens to be careful the way technology is used, and who gets to use it.
From technology boosts, people are now able to watch movies by the push of a button, send emails to a country on the other side of the world, and surf the web while being almost anywhere. Advancements have also played a huge role in the quality and graphics of television shows, movies, and even video games. The goal is to enhance the film enough to where it feels as if the viewers or gamers are in the picture themselves. Playing a video game with these high quality graphics puts a player in first person mode and allows them to react to certain situations with a character with nearly endless possibilities. Video games with violence can take this enhancement and turn it into a damaging quality. Not meaning to, a person can kill other people, practice in illegal drugs and alcohol, and be witnessed to excessive amounts of violence. After time, these parts of a video game could become addictive and could lead a gamer to thinking that behavior in a violent game is acceptable. Violent acts could be practiced until a player is consumed by the behavior of a violent video game.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is an established, non-profitable association made of 7,500 trained child and adolescent Physicians and Psychiatrists. The AACAP offers publications and topics that include information about child disorders and things that cause more disorders. AACAP wrote one article about the positive and negative effects of video games. The article pointed out that it was all about the genre of the video game that showed whether or not children could benefit from their experience with the game. Their information told that video games could offer learning experiences for children while others chose to entertain young brains with violence and crude behavior. These games become addictive and can cause a child to eventually become, “immune to violence”, stated as in AACAP. After being consumed by the violent acts in a video game, young gamers tend to go to violent video games as their answers to problems. AACAP goes on to share tips for parents on how to control children from becoming addicted to violent video games, and how to steer children away from going through a phase of violence.
Chacha Tumbokon, a Psychology and Early Childhood Development graduate, promoted the ideas of how video games are helpful. Chacha stated, “Video games give your child’s brain a real workout.” Video games help with hand-eye coordination, following instructions, and logic and problem solving skills. Along with skills learned from playing video games, children are also able to receive computer skills they will need in the future. Along with AACAP, other sources gave tests and offered tips for parenting with their children, but some sources had different methods for showing it.
The Washington Post is made of News and Professional Writers that go out and gather tips and sends a crew of their staff to cover the story. A Washington Post writer, Donna St. George, wrote an article for their newspaper with nearly the same idea as Anne Harding. Anne Harding works for CNN News located in Atlanta Georgia. CNN is staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Their staff is built of nearly 4000 news professionals who lead their industry in online delivery and information daily. Both of the writer’s ideas were conduct a test with both American children and Japanese children. The Washington Post agreed that if violent video games only increased aggression in American children, than it was national phenomenon that only affected the United States. A professor from Iowa University, Craig A. Anderson, showed that Japanese researchers shared that video games are very popular in Japan, and that crime and violence is less likely to occur there. Anderson believed that America might be the only country devastated by violent video games. Anderson’s studies showed something different from the Japanese researchers:
“Yet the studies produced similar findings in both countries, Anderson said. “When you find consistent effects across two very different cultures, you're looking at a pretty powerful phenomenon,” he said. "One can no longer claim this is somehow a uniquely American phenomenon. This is a general phenomenon that occurs across cultures.”
Both children from America and Japan showed that after playing violent video games, they were more likely to get in a disagreement or fight at school. Donna St. George went further with her research than did Anne Harding. George included words from parents on how they feel about violent video games after interviews with them. Patricia Daumas, a single mother of two told that she did not approve of violent video games and that she would not let her children play games rated “mature”. Daumas said, “I don't think the games are good for them," she said, "but what I'm seeing in my own children is that they're still very gentle, that they're very caring, and they have absolutely no behavior problems at school.”
Amanda Schaffer works with an online magazine, Slate, that offers many topics and has won numerous awards for their magazine. Schaffer took the opportunity to try and show that violent video games can cause aggression by giving examples of violent acts in the past.
“On The Daily Show on Thursday, April 26, Jon Stewart made short work of the suggestion that the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, might have been influenced by violent video games. (Cho may or may not have played the popular first-person-shooter game Counter-Strike in high school.) A potential video-game connection has also been dangled after past killings, to the irritation of bloggers. The reports are that shooter Lee Boyd Malvo played the game Halo before his sniper attacks around Washington, D.C., and that Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold loved Doom. Does the link between video games and violence hold up?”
Schaffer gave prime examples of how a video game may have affected the behavior of murderers in the past. However, Schaffer stated in her article: “millions of people play Counter-Strike, Halo, and Doom and never commit crimes.” This concluded that violent video games do not cause violence, but it causes an increase in aggression that gamers show publicly.
CBS News, a chain of the National CBS Corporation, is composed of a top-notch journalism staff that provides up to date information twenty-four hours and seven days a week. CBS wrote an article similar to that of Schaffer. They introduced a story of an eighteen year-old male, Devin Moore, who committed a crime of murder to resemble a very popular violent video game, “Grand Theft Auto.” Devin Moore was brought into questioning in the police station for belief of having a stolen vehicle. He shot three police officers to get out of his situation and stole a police car to get away. Lawsuits were placed on the makers of the violent video game. The culprit of the violent act was how the violent video game introduced high stress levels and aggression in his life.
Video games are advancing and will always be around. It is nearly impossible to keep them out of the hands of children. With the near impossible, tips for parents to follow will help your children remain without aggression and violence. Dr. Phil is a very well known Psychologist who has is own television show. He provides in an article he wrote about violent video games, a list of tips to help parents. Dr. Phil wrote, “know your children, read the ratings and more, go online and research, rent before you buy, talk to other parents, play the games with your children and tell them what is wrong when you encounter it, set time limits, and put the video games in a public place in the home.” These tips should help children from being introduced to too much violence.
Video games are taking over a major part of the technology world. With this said, children and adolescents are going to be introduced to video games at home, school, or even a friends house. Boundaries must be set from parents so that children can establish right from wrong and know that violence in video games are not permitted.
Works Cited
“Can a Video Game Lead to Murder?” CBS News. CBS, n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2011.
“Children and Video Games: Playing with Violence.” American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2006. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
George, Donna St. “Study Links Violent Video Game, Hostility.” The Washington Post. The Washington Post, 3 Nov 2008. Web. 28 Jan. 2011.
Harding, Anne. “Violent Video Games Linked to Child Aggression.” CNN Health. CNN, 3 Nov. 2008. Web. 28 Jan. 2011.
McGraw, Phil. “Children and Violent Video Games.” Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil, n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
Schaffer, Amanda. “Don’t Shoot: Why Video Games Really Are Linked to Violence.” Slate. Slate, 27 Apr. 2007. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.
Tumbokon, Chacha. “The Good and Bad Effects of Video Games.” Raise Smart Kid. Raise Smart Kid, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2011.
