English 1311 Daniel Senz University of Texas at El Paso
EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES IN CHILDRENS LIVES 2 Abstract: Videogames affect childrens behavior. Several studies have proven that violent videogames tend to make children more aggressive. Parents should be more careful on which games they are buying to their children and should pay more attention on how much time their children are spending playing videogames.
EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES IN CHILDRENS LIVES 3 Video game usage has increased during the past fifteen years. Children and teenagers are the ones that spend more time using video games in their daily life. Psychological effects on children has been a very debated theme these years. The majority of children spend more time playing video games than studying or practicing a sport. Parents use video games for rewarding their kids for something, or just because they need to distract their children. What they are not realizing is that they are affecting their childrens life by giving them a vice that later can bring side effects like: Taking them away from interacting with others directly, making children more aggressive, depression and bad performance in school. Parents should be more careful on what video games they are buying for their children to avoid these common problems of children caused by playing in excess video games. Video games affect children in many ways, and there are ways that are more obvious than others but most of them will have a negative impact in childrens behavior. There are also positive impacts on childrens behavior with certain type of games. According to Granic, Lobel, and Engels (2013) due to the increasingly complexity, diversity, and realistic the videogames have became, they have cognitive, motivational, emotional and social benefits to its users. This is a valid argument and in fact there are positive impacts with videogames, but there are more negative effects than positive effects. Sometimes, parents dont know what they are buying for their kids. They dont pay much attention to the rating of each game they are buying. Ratings are made for obvious reasons; categories are made because there are studies such a Canadian research by Bajovic (2013) that revealed that watching a great deal of violence on video games and television may hinder childrens moral development and that some children who were exposed to violent videogames or programs, may use less advanced moral reasoning skills. On another study conducted by to Dittrick, Beran, Mishna, Hetherington and Shariff (2013), they state EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES IN CHILDRENS LIVES 4 that children that bully others are likely to prefer playing video games that are rated high in maturity and violence. Taking children away from interacting with others directly, affects their behavior in many ways, like limiting their ability to interact with others. Rubin (2011) states that heavy gamers who play an average of 31 hours a week, compared with 19 hours a week for other students, were more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and social phobias. The ability to interact with others is an ability that develops with time and by practicing it. If people do not interact with others they wont learn how to do it, and if they interact just a little they wont practice to become good at it. They were also more likely to see their grades in school drop and have worse relationship with their parents. Violent video games can change the behavior of the kids that play them. Violent games can affect children by exposing their kids to violence, the kid start to see violence as something fun and more common. According to Carey (2013), the young men who opened fire at Columbine high school, at the movie theater in Colorado, there was something in common; the aggressors were video gamers who seemed to be acting out some dark digital fantasy. Right now, our society is full with violence. The content of violent scenes in a game that is for fun the kid, he or she would see it as normal. This brings more side effects than imagined, such as the children tend to be more aggressive, more prone to confrontation with their teachers, and may engage in fights with their peers. According to Anderson, Gentile and Buckley (2007), there are three types of aggression that a kid can develop because the excessive use of violent video games. The first type is called Physical aggression and violence; this type of aggression consists of causing harm to others by direct physical means, such as hitting, tripping, stabbing, or shooting. The second type of aggression is the verbal aggression; which consists of causing harm by verbal means, such as by calling a person hurtful names. It also includes written statements like e- EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES IN CHILDRENS LIVES 5 mail or text messages. The third aggression is the relational aggression; which consists of behaviors that harm others through damage to relationships or to feelings of acceptance, friendship, or group inclusion. Due the popularity of video games in society, taking away the video games from kids may be difficult, but parents can do something that will help controlling how much kids spend playing and also what kind of video games kids play. According to the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB, 2008), there are several tools that parents can utilize to be better informed about the games that are entering home. The ESRB rating system is one of them because it provides helpful guidance about the content and age- appropriateness of computer and video games. There are also parental controls on each console that are configured when you install by the first time the console. Parents should be around when the console is first set up so that their children dont activate parental control settings of their own choosing and secure them with a password or PIN that they only know. Do not install video games equipment in your children rooms; this will be easier to the kids to play when you are not supervising. Set a limit on how many hours your kid can play at week. Check the games your kid play when they are playing and talk to them about them to see how they see violence and blood in this games. Talk to other parents about the video games your kids have and about some strategies you have to control your kid from playing all day video games. With all these factors, people can be sure that in fact, video games have negative side effects on children. That if they are not treated well and there is not a stop by parents by controlling their children of not abusing of video games, it can be a tragically problem, such as killing other people like several cases of young adults that killed other people and then commit suicide, or simply caught by the police totally mentally deranged. Now there should be no doubt that violence in video games and social media does affect EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES IN CHILDRENS LIVES 6 young peoples behavior. There are studies that support that theory and there have been several cases of crazy young people committing crimes, and the majority of the cases the aggressors abused of playing video games and watching violent movies or programs.
Reference: Anderson, C. A., Gentile, D. A., & Buckley, K. E. (2007).Violent video game effects on children and adolescents : theory, research, and public policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bajovic, M. (2013). Violent video gaming and moral reasoning in adolescents: Is there an association?. Educational Media International, 50(3), 177- 191.doi:10.1080/09523987.2013.836367
Carey, B. (2013, February 11). Shooting in the Dark. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/studying-the-effects-of- playing-violent-video-games.html?_r=0
Dittrick, C. J., Beran, T. N., Mishna, F., Hetherington, R., & Shariff, S. (2013). Do Children Who Bully Their Peers Also Play Violent Video Games? A Canadian National Study. Journal Of School Violence, 12(4), 297-318. doi:10.1080/15388220.2013.803244
Rabin , R. C. (2011, January 18). Video Games and the Depressed Teenager. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/video- games-and-the-depressed-teenager/
ESRB, PTA. (2008) A Parents Guide to Video Games, Parental Controls and Online Safety. Retrieved from https://www.esrb.org/about/news/downloads/ESRB_PTA_Brochure-web_version.pdf
Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. E. (2013). The Benefits of Playing Video Games. American Psychologist, 69(1), doi:10.1037/a0034857