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Of all of the kids in America, approximately 90% of them play video games. Of these games, about 85% of them contain violence. (CNN)This violence isn't appropriate for children and they do not comprehend the long term and short term effects of what they are doing when they play these games. They are only looking for short-term pleasure in winning from these games.
These effects are shown through desensitization, empathy, accomplishment, addiction, rage, stress and the correlation between violence and pleasure. The exposure to violence at a young age has multiple repercussions.
One of these is desensitization. Desentization by definition is “the elimination or reduction of natural or acquired reactivity or sensitivity to an external stimulus, like an allergen.” (dictionary.com). In other words, this means that one's emotions are not as strong as they would have been previously.
As an example, experiences that would have scared or frightened someone would not be as life-changing the next time around. With this repeated exposure to an incident, there will not be the same rush of adrenalin there once was before.
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These video games have lead to a loss of empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand the feeling of others. They have lost this empathy because these children have become accustomed to violence. During a news statement about a school shooting Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said: “Many [students] have lost empathy to their victims by watching hours and hours of video, violent games”. Possibly More information. Cite Sorce These games also affect ones feeling of accomplishment.
With video games, accomplishment is easily achievable.
When the same amount of effort is applied to a real-life scenario there will not be the same accomplishment factor as there would be without these games. These children become accustomed to the feeling of accomplishment when it is received in excess this feeling will be numbed compared to the original feeling.
Violent video games are addicting. The game developers make them this way so more people will enjoy their game which will lead to more sales and eventually leads to more money in their pocket. This addiction can harm anyone especially the children who overplay them. According to daily mail, a study taken in 2018 shows that on average kids play 15 hours of video games a week. That is more than 2 hours a day of video games played. The children can't stop playing these games because they are addicted to them.
These addicted children have become attached to there video games. Not only are they getting the effects of playing violent video games, but they are getting the addiction to affect also. Taking these games away from the children will often turn into a physical outburst from there addiction to them. Another problem with these games is rage. Rage is violent, uncontrollable anger.
This can and is caused by these games because they are frustrating. If you take Call of Duty Black Ops for example, when you play multiplayer your goal is to kill other players online. When you have things go against you, you might experience rage. There have been multiple instances where gamers will break things because they are getting upset with there games. They will physically in the real world break things because their video game is giving them rage. One of the most common broken items is a controller.
There are even stories where people throw things and cause thousands of dollors worth of damage. Another psychological negative is that it teaches children to “associate violence with pleasure” according to Psychology Today. Kids get the feeling of accomplishment from hurting others. Take the game Fortnight, for example, your objective is to kill other people. Children are unconsciously building the foundation for this in their subconscious. That means that later in life they will feel success for putting others down instead of helping someone out. This is the same concept as bullying.
The gamer will feel success just like the bully would when he shames his targets. For example, if a bully verbally teased a kid and the kid started to cry, the bully would feel success and accomplishment towards himself for making someone else feel bad. The gamer will feel success when he kills someone in fortnight.
Video Games are designed to be addictive. Kids playing hours of violent video games hours on end is the equivalent of kids practicing negative behavior hours on end. According to Psychology Today, “Whatever a person practices repeatedly becomes an automatic response. Violent games teach children how to behave like a criminal and to intentionally hurt others”. So indirectly kids are mentally becoming criminals. Stress is another effect of violent video games. The game designers add challenging scenarios to games which make them interesting and in turn make you stressed. Stress is caused in this way because of your inability to complete this task whatever it is. If you take in too much stress at one time it may cause you to outburst into a physical rage. This physical rage or otherwise known as violence came from the children who have it that came from the stressful video game they played. Slenderman is a video game where you are chased by a tall pale white mythical man wearing a black suit in the woods. You run around in the dark with a flashlight and try to avoid him while finding pieces to a puzzle. If you make eye contact with him he will kill you.
In 2014 two girls who were obsessed with this game Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier. According to CNN “Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier, both 12 at the time of the crime, lured their 12-year-old classmate into a park in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where they stabbed her 19 times to impress the Slenderman”. Being exposed to the game is not the sole reason that they killed there classmate but it is part of the reason. If the two children wouldn't have been exposed to this they wouldn't have had the idea that slenderman told them to do this.
Violent video games are not designed for children but children still play them. You can view this the same way you would view a cigarette box. On the cigarette box, it tells you all of the negative side effects but you still take them anyways because they are addicting. Children know they shouldn't play these games but can't stop playing them because they are addicting. They have become reliant on these games and will receive the negative effects from these. With the understanding of desensitization, empathy, accomplishment, addiction, rage, stress and the correlation between violence and pleasure parents can help their children before it gets worse.
They can work on slowly transferring them from violent games to nonviolent games, and to lessen the amount of time they can play per day. By doing this it would dramatically affect their futures and have a positive impact on society. A society where people are there to help each other instead of dominating each other.
Society will not completely change because people stop playing violent video games, but it a step in the correct direction to help make America the America that it has the potential to be.
Video Games: Future Violence of Children in America. (2021, Dec 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/video-games-future-violence-of-children-in-america-essay
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