Do Violent Video Games Make Kids Angry and Cruel? - Research Paper

Introduction

For years now more video games which are both violent and prosocial games have been introduced into the society and there has been a rise in concern on whether these games have any emotional effect to the kids' social life. There are those who have argued that these game, especially the violent games have great effects to kids emotions and that they make them angry while there are those that have claimed that these game have do not have any emotional among the children. In this paper, we are going to research on the same argument and try to answer this same question which is; "do violent games make kids angry and cruel?"

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In our generation today, video games are one of the most enjoyed forms of entertainment amongst the kids, youths and even the elderly. Although they are very popular, they are followed by a lot of controversies that surrounds them. Recently, the world health organization as added to its list of mental health conditions the "gaming disorder". The organization stated that the gaming behaviors can qualify to be problematic if it directly or have a significant interference with different areas of people's lives ("How Playing Video Games Affects Your Body And Brain").

People have also argued that there might be a link between the violent behaviors like for instance the tragic school shooting that occurred in Parkland, Florida and playing video games. Most of these people claim that the level of violence in the video games really shapes the thought of the young people (Susan Scutti). President Donald Trump had this thought after the mass shooting at parkland and also his predecessor Barack Obama had to question the act of playing violent video games after the Sandy Hooks school in Newton, Connecticut.

Although the video games have been criticized by many people, there are those who feel that these games have positive impacts on the student. These people have pointed out that these games may help improve kids' attention to pay on detailed information and process the visual information (Susan Scutti).

The reasons above have therefore prompted us to ask ourselves to question the effects of video games on kids' lives and that is why we ask ourselves "do violent games make kids angry and cruel?" This study will, therefore, engage these arguments and come up with conclusions on the exert impacts of video games to the kids' lives

In the United States, more than 90% of the children play video games; this is according to the physiological group. The number is even higher 97% among the kids who age between age 12 and 17 (Susan Scutti). It also very important to note that more than 85% of the video games that available in the market contain violence acts. Even the titles of these games seem to say it all. Example of these games includes; "Manhunt", "Mortal Kombat", and "Gears of War". Even those which their titles seem not to link with the act of violence still involve battle missions, like for instance "Pokemon Go". The research carried by the American physical association in August 2015 observed and demonstrated that there was a great link between playing violent video games and the cruelty behavior, and also that there was a decrease in prosocial behavior, moral engagement, and empathy among kids in the United States.

It is very true that violent media sets a poor example for kids in the United States. The video games that use human or any other living target and give award point for killing have a very great impact on kids' behavior and this might create violence out of them. This is because of the act of killing that these kids learn and demonstrate while playing associate success and pleasure with their ability to cause suffering and pain to others.

There is a great link that many study results have revealed about the instances where humans are exposed to violent media and their aggressive thought, aggressive behavior, and their angry feelings. Many people believe that when you are exposed to seeing violence every day, you will tend to adopt the act of violence. Although this argument appeals to many people, there are those who feel that playing video games does not have any relationship with the violent behaviors that are sometimes exhibited among the kids. For instance, an associate professor of sociology at the Western Michigan University, Whitney DeCamp noted that scientific evidence pointed that there was an insufficient link between playing video games and the violent behavior or there was no relationship between being angry and cruelty behavior playing video games.

Video games also glorify the use of drugs; this might directly sink into the mind of the children who play the game and thus eventually making them adopt the behaviors they see. Many drug and alcohol addicts are always accompanied by the violent and cruel behavior which they might adopt and hence affecting their lives ("3 Unexpected Effects of Violent Video Games on Kids").

The video games also demonstrate criminal activities that are very harmful when kids adopt them and these will affect their social emotion. When kids pick criminal habit with them, they will demonstrate them to the society in a cruel way affecting the lives of other negatively. There are also some violent behaviors toward women that are displayed in these video games. The sexual exploitations have often been glorified in some of these games and this increase the cruelty behavior among the kids in the society. There are also some fouls languages that might be adopted when kids play these games. Obscene gestures in these games also play a vital role in changing kids' behavior making them cruel and raising anger in them ("3 Unexpected Effects of Violent Video Games on Kids").

The same way the pro-social video games aims is to help the kids or anybody else have positive effects on their behavior to the same extent the violent video games can cause harm on the kids' behavior ("Violent Video Games Make Children More Violent"). As prosocial games can teach children to be co-operative and always have fair competition, the violent games teach children to be cruel and use anger to cause violence. There are studies that argue that playing action video games enhance kids' visual attention and thus resulting in a faster reaction time. This can be interpreted either positively or negatively depending on different people understanding. However, there are some children who will learn from the skills that are being displayed in these games and decide to practice them on other kids.

Conclusion

Following this arguments, it is recommended that parents or guardians should try and select video games for their children themselves and make sure that they have gone through the content carefully before they reach the conclusion of giving them to the kids. Parents are also advised to play a few games with their kids so that they may be aware and understand the content in the game and judge if it may have a positive or negative impact to their kids. Parents are also advised to teach their kids not to focus on video games too much but try to encourage them to develop a new hobby such as sports, singing, painting, and dancing so as to suppress the addiction in video games. It is also recommended that parents should talk with parents of other kids who usually play with their kids and inform them of their family rules that concern the video games and also encourage these parents to also come up with video game rules. The most important is that parents should remember that they are a role model for their kids and that they should support their children during the good times and admonish them when needed. Lastly, if any parent is concern about their children video games habit, they should set some rule or limit for them from the first day ("3 Unexpected Effects Of Violent Video Games On Kids").

It can, therefore, be concluded that violent video games make kids angry and cruel. Thus the parents are advised to be conscious of the content that kids pay with and limit their access to these games. Though it is not possible that your child may never play any video games, their idea is to be careful that the game content is properly filtered.

Work Cited

"How Playing Video Games Affects Your Body And Brain". Business Insider, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/video-games-and-violence-2018-3?IR=T. Accessed 22 July 2018.

"Research: Violent Video Games Are Not As Harmful As You May Believe - Tech addiction". Techaddiction.Ca, 2018, http://www.techaddiction.ca/effects_of_violent_video_games.html. Accessed 22 July 2018.

"Violent Video Games Make Children More Violent". Centre For Educational Neuroscience, 2018, http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/resources/neuromyth-or-neurofact/violent-video-games-make-children-more-violent/. Accessed 22 July 2018.

"3 Unexpected Effects Of Violent Video Games On Kids". Momjunction, 2018, http://www.momjunction.com/articles/unexpected-side-effects-of-violent-video-games-on-kids_00103691/#gref. Accessed 22 July 2018.

Susan Scutti, CNN. "Do Video Games Lead To Violence?". CNN, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/25/health/video-games-and-violence/index.html. Accessed 22 July 2018.