Tommy is a nine year old avid video game player. After coming home, doing his homework and eating dinner, Tommy spends the rest of his evening, at the permission of his parents, playing video games. As excited as he gets about the idea of a new release, Tommy begs his parents to buy him Bioshock, a game that is rated "M for Mature." His parents, knowing just how badly he wants the title, buy it for him without a second thought. Tommy is elated and spends the entire evening, well into the wee hours of Friday night, shooting, slamming, and slaughtering his way through the overtly violent and morally grey title. As the days pass, Tommy continues to play, and starts missing dinner. Eventually, his grades start to ease down from A's and B's into B's and C's, then subsequently further as the months begin to pass. His parents, sensing something troubling, begin to ask Tommy what the problem is. After sitting down and discussing things with him, he becomes defensive, rude, and disrespectful. Lashing out, he pushes his mother and runs outside. Over the coming months, Tommy's parents continue to buy him video games, hoping it'll keep him happy, and affording them a chance to escape from his increasingly violent outbursts. His parents notice a sharper downturn in his school performance and his desire to eat in his room instead of with them at the dinner table. His attitude takes a sharp downward spiral, his respect for both his parents and others fraying and causing both concern from his parents and trouble from friends and classmates. Tommy's struggles with school and friends causes emotional depression, leading them to a counselor in town. The counselor, asking of Tommy's home life and habits, discovers that his parents are allowing him... ... middle of paper ... ...r in today's youth. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board was designed to combat the potential for the wrong materials to fall into the wrong hands. Parents have a moral obligation to follow these warnings and suggestions and police the content their children are allowed to see. With enough negative influence in their lives as it is, children could do worse than to have parents that restrict what they are allowed to participate in. Instead of being their "friends," parents need to be "parents" and provide a sound, intelligent, morally upright home in which to raise their children. Controlling the content their children are allowed to view is just one such means to raise their kids to be productive, respectful and outstanding members of today's society. Works Cited Gross, Doug. "The 10 biggest violent video-game controversies." 29 Jun. 2011. Web. 22 Sep. 2011.
Paulson, Ken. “How obscene is video game violence?” USA Today. USA Today, 2 November 2010. Web. 24 October 2011.
The MPAA rating system is outdated. The recent advances in technology allow children to see movies regardless of the rating. The rating system worked well for the early years, but recently “kids slip into the movies they want to see. . . . They also see them at home on widely available DVDs, on cable, and via popular streaming services like Netflix and Amazon” (Ebert 2). Even when kids go to the theater to see movies they can “theater hop” or buy a ticket to a low rated movie and slip into the R rated film of their choice. DVDs and the Internet both provide ways for kids to watch movies that contain objectionable material. Websites that offer the o...
The authors first reasoning to help support his claim was “Censorship can also protect us from the circulation of dangerous information.” Another reasoning the author had stated was “It is also wrong for information that is false or misleading to be easily available for anyone to find.” The author gives logical reasoning to support his claim, but does not give sufficient support. Not only does the author give insufficient support, but he also doesn’t organize the passage clearly, so that the reader can understand his reasoning clearly. If the readers were trying to detect the supporting evidence he used to back his claim up, they would take longer than they should. The author also uses exaggeration in his article. They say “Parents have no power at all over the entertainment.” This is exaggeration because they say “no power at all,” by saying this that means there is no possibility of any parent in the world having any control over entertainment. How about the people that work for entertainment industry? What if they are parents? Technology these days also allow parents to block
In today’s world of multimedia it has become extremely hard to avoid the introduction of adult themes to younger children, who lack the maturity to process and question the information. Young people are bombarded continually with unsuitable and undesirable concepts that give false images of acceptable behavior. Music, movies, television, internet and video games are accredited with the moral deterioration of present day youth. Great strides have been made to establish rating guidelines, parental controls and warning labels that assist adults in making informed choices on what their children should or should not be able to access but they are not perfect.
Tzemach, Gayle. “Blood and Gore Onscreen”. Violence Invades Video Games. 1 December 2001. ABC News. 19 March 2002. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/dailynews/internetgames981201.html
Many kids like Tommy, who spend most of their childhood and adolescences emerged in imaginary lands rather than dealing with the real world at hand, become socially anxious and have low self-esteem later in life. Instead of thriving with a career and family, they relapse back to the same virtual interaction they had as a child. They float through life barely able to support themselves or result to living with their parents. Adulthood seems to them a mere task they must complete in order to continue their gaming. Excessive videogame play for children and adolescents cause social anxiety, depression, and aggression because more time is spent alone engrossed in dynamic storylines and complex situations than outside building face-to-face relationships and other healthy social skills that better prepare them for their future.
Roxanne challenges the importance of trigger warning, and argues they are ineffective and impractical to create safe online spaces. She refers to Joanne Cantor’s research that found parental discretion warnings and the more restrictive MPAA ratings stimulate some children’s interest in viewing programs,” and “the increased interest in restricted programs is more strongly linked to children’s desire to reject control over their viewing than to their seeking out violent content.” This brings down to the dilemma of the forbidden fruit, triggering curiosity towards things that they are forbidden to do.
FORD, WILLIAM K.1. "The Law And Science Of Video Game Violence: What Was Lost In Translation?." Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 31.2 (2013): 297-356. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson). Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
Reilly, Rachel “Violent Video Games make Children Grow Up Into aggressive adults” Dailymail.com March 2014 26 March 2014
“While most teenagers (60 percent) spend on average 20 hours per week in front of television and computer screens, a third spend closer to 40 hours per week, and about 7 percent are exposed to more than 50 hours of 'screen-time' per week”(Many Teens Spend). Many parents agree that they would rather not have their children view indecencies on the Internet and television, and the government should control the obscenities on the Internet. Others believe that it is the parent’s responsibility to control and censor what their children are watching on the Internet and television.
Costikyan, Greg. “The Problem of Video Game Violence is Exaggerated.” Video Games. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2003. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Web. 5 Nov. 2005.
Ever walked into a music store and seen those parental advisory stickers on most of today’s popular music? Or noticed those television ratings on the top left corner of one’s favorite shows? How about the ratings on one’s favorite video games? How do these so-called harmless stickers and images affect the world of entertainment and the freedom of expression? The government alone is not the only responsible party to blame for censoring or even banning certain shows, music, and games. Parent organizations also play a role with influencing what is and is not censored. A recent craze to promote "family values" in the United States has caused censorship panels to go entirely too far with the censorship of the entertainment industry including television, radio, the Internet, and even authors.
Since his baby sister’s birth, Tommy’s normally moody mother’s been like a “sky full of dark clouds.” When his older sister’s seriously burned, Tommy’s left to cope with her daily newspaper route, his increasingly abusive mother, his overwhelmed father and his younger sisters. Tommy reacts by bullying classmates, especially a shy, overweight new boy at school named Sam. When he’s caught stealing from Sam’s father’s store, Tommy retaliates by planting a copy of a communist newspaper found during a community paper drive in the store. After the owner’s accused of being a communist and the store’s boycotted, Tommy realizes
This world has become immersed in online media from socializing on networking sites to seeking information on search engines. People of all ages have become reliant on online media, but the most engaged users are the younger, more easily impacted generations. Although there are many positive uses for online media, there are many negative uses as well. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for these negative effects to impede upon the perceptions of adolescents. Some countries have been trying to reduce this effect by expelling the inappropriate content of online media ("Influence on Children Media...”). However, in the United States, children are thrown in the waves, expected to stay afloat in this massive sea, but many are being dragged under the surface by the nefarious temptations media creates. Content that is not appropriate for the young, growing minds of children are easily accessible; a myriad of devices may be used to access this material, all at the click of a button. Without adult content filters on online media, adolescents of various ages are exposed to dangerous conceptions. A world of pornography, violence, and public humiliation lay in the user’s fingertips.
“As video games have become more violent and more sophisticated and the sales of video games has skyrocketed in the last few decades, youth violence has plummeted,” Ferguson says, citing evidence compiled by various federal agencies (Adams 3). Violence in video games is not a new issue. It has been debated and argued since the release of the first violent video game. As time has progressed, so has the evolution of violence and strong language within video games. Ratings have become more relaxed, and the lines between T (Teen) and M (Mature) rated games has gotten closer together. Violent games are becoming the normal and accepted of all games, and are being demanded by the gaming industry more heavily. Parents have always shied away from these games for their children, regardless of age. However, kids are getting these games whether they are the correct age (17+) or not. Young kids, less than ten years of age are playing horribly violent games and parents are fearing the repercussions. But video games are not to be blamed for child violence. Violence in video games does not cause children to become violent people later on in life.