Children and Violent Video Games

“The worst thing a kid can say about homework is that it is too hard. The worst thing a kid can say about a game is it’s too easy. ” This was actually quoted by Henry Jenkins. Good Morning My Fellow Students and judges, as you all would know I would be discussing the topic video games cause violence and I would be talking in favor of this topic. More and more kids today are playing video and computer games — especially ultra-violent ones that are top sellers. A recent analysis shows that a majority of video games include violence and about half of the violent incidents would result in serious injuries or death in the real world.

Violent video games can increase children’s aggression. The number one negative effect is they tend to inappropriately resolve anxiety by externalizing it. So when kids have anxiety, which they do, instead of soothing themselves, calming themselves, talking about it or even expressing it emotionally by crying, they tend to externalize it. They can attack something, they can kick a wall, they can be mean to a dog or a pet. Additionally, there’s an increased frequency of violent responses from children who play these kinds of video games. Violent video games don’t teach kids moral consequences.

If you shoot somebody in one of these games, you don’t go to jail, you don’t get penalized in some way — you get extra points! This doesn’t mean that children will go out into the world and shoot someone. “But they do use more aggressive language, they do use more aggressive expressions, they have less ability to control their anger and they externalize things in these violent ways. It’s absolutely not good. The American Psychological Association says playing violent games correlates to children being less caring and helpful toward their peers.

And these effects happen just as much for non-aggressive children as they do for children who already have aggressive tendencies. Children spend a great deal of time with violent video games at exactly the ages that they should be learning healthy ways to relate to other people and to resolve conflicts peacefully. Thus I think that playing violent video games is the same as watching violent movies, they are all scripted in the same way and they put you through the violence training. I would say that we should Jump off the video games and get a life!