EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES IN CHILDRENS LIVES 1

Effects of Video Games in Childrens Lives.

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