Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Video Games: Toxic to Children
Video games have been criticized for many years due to their graphic nature and negative affects they have on children. Video games cause children to sit alone in a room for many hours, interacting with a machine, rather than playing outside where they can exercise and improve their social skills while playing with other children. Exposure to violence in video games is the general contributor to aggressive behavior, desensitization to real-life situations and emotional problems in children. The violence in video games affects children in many ways and in some cases, it has life-long consequences.
There are many powerful influences on a child’s behavior. “Children learn to behave by watching people around them and by observing characters in movies, video games and television and often, violent behavior is learned early in a child’s life” (Norcia ‘Impact’ 2). Children must be taught to distinguish real-life from fiction; as well as behavior that is appropriate and that which is not. The same applies when playing video games. Children are exceptionally vulnerable to negative behavior, especially that of video games. Playing violent games can increase a child’s aggressive thoughts, behaviors and actions and often “kids who are immersed in violent video games are more likely to get into physical fights, argue with authority, or display anger and hostility” (Schaffer 1). Some children are drawn to violent games because of pre-existing problems or the development of new problems.“ Some kids use games as a way to vent anger or to distract themselves from problems. However, venting anger doesn’t reduce aggressive behavior at a later time” (Schaffer 2). For example, children who have academic problems may use video games to escape from schoolwork or as a self-esteem booster. For other children, the smallest increase in excitement or arousal can trigger aggressive tendencies which also fuels pre-existing violent behaviors....