Video Games and Violence

1455 Words3 Pages

Video games have positive and negative aspects. Acording to a study, those who spend hours and hours in playing ‘civic games’ were found to take more part in different community services like social work, politics or protests, as compared to those who never took interest in vidoe games. Hence video games are proved to increase one’s social interaction skills. The kind of friendship and ethics that are learnt by the young gamers while playing video games provide evidence that they are not completely harmful to our society. (Heins, 62)

The chief argument why video games are harmful according to the media: violence. These games apparently brainwash children into thinking that violence is okay and influencing them to go out and shoot their neighbors and puppies. But they are a falsely accused party. First of all we must consider this: video games are rated similarly to movies. These ratings are supposed to protect the kids. K for kid friendly, T for teen, M for mature and AO for adult just to name a few. Many video game stores, such as GameStop, forbid employees from selling M and AO rated games to people under seventeen and eighteen respectively. There are also sub-ratings. Some are as bad as "Blood and Gore" which means depictions of blood or the mutilation of body parts. There are many ratings to protect kids. They do work sometimes, but the ratings that are supposed to keep these violent games away from kids do not always work. The ratings prevent kids from buying the games themselves. The parents just buy the games for them. Many times the parents don't know what they are buying for their kids. The kids’ older brothers or sisters may just buy the games for them because they don't care what they see. If there is any uncertai...

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...ysical condition and violence is just excuse given to the people by the media due to research laziness in research and unclear facts on the technology. Hence, playing video games is not only helpful and safe, but fun too!

Works Cited

Harris, Mark. "Wii will rock you healthier." The Sunday Times 9 March 2008: 6-12.

Heins, Marjorie. "Violence and the Media." First Amendment Center (2007): 50-62.

Jones, Candie, and Alison Stein Wellner. "Grants Awarded to Test Ideas for Healthy Games."General OneFile 12 June 2008: 150-182.

Lenhart, Amanda. Teens, Video Games, and Civics. Pew Internet & American Life Project,2006.

Lewis, George. "Researchers tout positive effects of video games." News Media. 2005.

McCurry, Justin. "Video games for the elderly: an answer to dementia or a marketing tool?"2006.

Sternheimer, Karen. "Do Video Games Kill?”." Context, 2007. 13-17.

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