What impact does violent video game have on youth?
Video games is a huge part of the younger generation’s day-to-day life and as a result it forms and shapes parts of their human behaviour as it becomes habitual. However the question one need to ask before concluding the effects of video gaming is (a) what impact does gaming habits have on youth?, (b) what impact does violent video games have on youth? This essay will argue that video game violence does not have a significant impact on youth and their behaviour. However, there are research that argues for and against both ways of this spectrum, on one side of the evidence argues that there is significant impact of playing violent video games and playing video games overall, on the other side of the spectrum there is evidence that argues engaging in video games activities could have beneficial outcome for youth. In circumstances where there are implications of video gaming affecting the behaviour of the youth, it is often related to the amount of time the individual spends on playing games. This essay will investigate in evidence from both spectrum and discuss some of the issues that might arise from playing video games extensive amount of time.
Many video games increased the amount of violence and the games are becoming significantly more realistic, going form violent to ultra-violent (Waddington 2007 p.121). This raises the question mentioned above what impact does violent video games have on youth, and do parents need to question what games their children are playing? Van Horn (1999, p.173) states there are light players and heavy players, the heavy players often chose to give up daily activates so theyt are able to play games. If this is the case, young people may give up activities such as sports, playing music instruments just to allocate more time for video gaming. Moreover such argument does not need to indicate that youth becomes more aggressive by spending more time playing video games. Jagodzinski (2006, p.283) states that highly violent games such as mortal combat and counter strike have been linked to tragedy events, such as the incident that took place in Columbine high school and Gutenberg gymnasium (Germany) where local a student ran amok and killed other students and teachers, however Jagodzinski (2006, p.283) further argues that, there are no strong evidence that would support such tragedies would be linked to playing video game. On the other hand, Vessy and Lee (2000, p.608) argues that children’s learns trough imitating things they observe, there seem to be a increase in aggressive behaviour in children imitating video games they play, furthermore this seem to be a short-term behaviour. Furgeson (2007, p.314) found that only 2% of people who plays violent video games could lead to violent behaviour, however such results does not support the link between video games and violent behaviour. Moreover Furgeson (2007, p314) ads that most publication about violent video games has taken biased position. Violence has always been incorporated in video games however nowadays with the rapid paste of technology and the advanced graphics available, games become more realistic then ever (Waddington 2007, p.122). If parents are concerned about their children and gaming, they should observe and regulate playing hours and making sure the children are playing the appropriate games. It seems that there is a grey area for who should take responsibility. Van Horn (1999, p.174) states that parents spent very little time with their children when they were playing video games and no distinct rules were set for playing video games. To what extent would such low communication between parents and their children protect them from paying video games more then necessary? By engaging parents in playing video games with their children might give the parents better understating for the content in the games. Increasing time with their children might give parents a better insight of how harmless video games can be and they might conclude that video games do not necessarily need to lead to aggressive behaviour. However violence in video games still seem to be one of the controversial topics within our society and still troubles parents today (Jagodzinski 2006, p.282).
So if the impact of violence is not too great what other effects can video gaming have on youth? Playing video games more then two hours everyday might have implications on class preparation and sleeping (Ogletree & Drake 2007, p.537). Paying extensive time of video games might not only have implication for oneself, but extensive video game playing can damage couples relationships, for instance if one partner spends a great deal of the spare time playing video games this could consequently have a negative impact on the relationship Ogletree & Drake 2007, p.537). Distinctly playing extensive time of video games will have impact on youth and individuals, so what prevention can parents take to regulate the amount of time their children play video games? Wallenius et al (2006, p.330) found from observation of study where poor parent-child communication could have been related to higher level off aggression and therefore enhancing the parent-child communication would moderate the link between game playing and direct aggression. With this in mind there is strong evidence that communication between parent and child is an important factor to regulate and impose rules around video game playing . Video game consumed in moderate level will not prevent the youth from carrying out their homework and other leisure activities. Assessing what games children will choose to play is important to regulate what amount of violence the games contains (Vessy and Lee 2000, p.608)
Video games are not only violent , it seem to be a unavoidable to stop youth from playing, why not utilise games for learning and take advantage of the technology to incorporate learning into video games instead of fearing video games. Vessy and Lee (2000, p.608) states that video games has become important tool for self-directed learning, moreover it was noted that video games significantly still was used for fun and when selecting a video game there are pleanty of information that could guide parents to make a suitable choice when purchasing a video game . Why wait until they started to play the game and then impose rules, if parents could take their responsibility and make the right purchase instead of complaining on content of video games, children might not be in situation whereas they own several video games with highly violent content.
So if there is a correlation between violent crime and video games, so should there not be a increase in violent juvenile crime with the increase of sales of video games? Hourigan (2008, p.21) states that as the sales of video games have risen during the last century there has been a decline in juvenile crime rates in the united states. On the other hand, Lugo (2006, p.11) found that the united states of America uses a video game called the American army, which is free of cost o be able to promote the army and recruit soldiers. Furthermore, the game is very realistic and top of the art within its category allows youth to do basic army training and go on to more advanced team defense. Computer games seem not only to be a tool for youth to spend their leisure time, its also being used for promotional activities, if this is ethical is a matter of question, however from a army perspective it could be beneficial to give their soldiers training simulation for real war situations.
Video game has its pros and cons, kids playing heavily hours of video games will replace some other from of activities for that. But anything with moderate amount is not damaging for anyone. Parents and should maintain high level of communication with their children in terms of appropriate playing hours and selection of video games. According to research, children learn from imitating and therefore making sure children play appropriate games are important. The tragedy in columbine was somewhat blamed at computer games, however there are arguments also supporting the fact that such accidents could not be strongly linked to video games. If parents would spend more time with their children playing video games, maybe they would find a better insight into video games and realise that it is not that dangerous and will not lead to aggressive behaviour. Also playing too much video games could have damaging impact for people in a “relationship”. Video games is not only damaging, they seem to be useful tools that could be used for self-directed learning, as children and kids are becoming more used to play computer games, why not use video games that could be useful for learning. Research has shown that there is no evidence between sales of video games increasing and the increase in juvenile crimes. Video games have moved to a promotional field, whereas the American army has used it as promotional tool and for recruitment purposes. What there is to come for video games is not clear yet, but what is known is that the issue of violence and video games is still an important topic. Furthermore, it could be argued from the research that was found that violent video games will not lead to a long-term aggressive behavior, but could have other consequences such as affect sleep and time allocated for homework and impact on partner ”relationship”
Reference list
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Wallenius, M & Punamaki, RL 2006,’digital game playing and direct and indirect aggression in early adolescence: The roles of age, social intelligence, and parent-child communication’, department of pcsychology, vol.36, pp.325-336
