Table of Contents
Introduction
Video games have found way to homes of many children long time ago. This has happened in both developing and developed countries, since arcade video games were operated by the coin advent. The spread of the video games can be blamed on the competition that the big gaming companies have. These include Sony, Microsoft, and Ninntendo. Internet can also be blamed for the high spread of the video games, since anyone who owns a computer and has an internet connection that is fast enough can access them. The most common games among the children are not decent enough, since they contain explicit content that may not be suitable to the gamer depending on his/her age. The video games that tend to be violent may affect the mind of the gamer, which might affect them in a long run. This paper discusses some of the effects that the video games may have on the children.
Aggression
Most video gamers that play violent video games are seen to be always aggressive .This is because these people start to see the world as a hostile place which lacks the meaning of living. Violent games award the kids if they complete a certain mission, which mostly requires them to kill certain people. This means that they repeatedly do the violence act. The children are usually in total control of the killings and other forms of violence (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2005). They also experience that explicit violence in their own senses. Most of these violence activities include kicking, shooting, stabbing, and killing (Bryant, 2006). The repetition of the violent activities, the given rewards and children’s active participation are the most effective tools for the students to learn the behavior. Many research studies always seem to blame violent games for the aggressiveness of the young people. Children who play games like Call of Duty, Mortal Kombat, and Grand Auto Theft tend to behave in a more aggressive manner that their counterparts who play games like Need for Speed and Zuma. Some investigators studied a number of people who played one violent game for three days. These people later showed an increased rate of aggressive behavior. The children also showed a hostile expectation each time they played. The researchers also stated that the kids who played games that were not violent displayed non noticeable aggression changes or no noticeable hostile expectation during that period (Nichols & Thomas, 2004).
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Lower School Grades
Children who play consistent violent video games do not do well in school. There are some students who were extremely successful at the beginning of studying process, but once introduced to the violent games, they tend to show much worse performance. This shows that any academic achievement may be related negatively to the amount of time that is spent on video games (Bryant, 2006). Some researches have shown that the more the amount of time which a child spends when playing these games is, the more his/her school performance becomes lower. A study which if conducted by a psychology school discovered that most addicts of the video games tend to argue with their teachers. They also tend to fight more with their close friends, which later translates to the children having lower grades than those of the students who take less time to play the games. Other studies discovered that most of the gamers did not take their homework at all so as to spare some time for the video games. A good number of students admitted clearly that their video game addiction was the main reason why they had poor grades in school (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2005) Addiction to the video games may hurt the attention issues of the children. This may cause the students to concentrate in lesser demanding activities in a short burst increase at the same time affecting negatively the concentration which needed for long term tasks.
Obesity
Some researchers in the United States have made a discovery that most teens in the country are obese. The health researchers later made an observation that made a big tread in the violent video game drawing a parallel with the rates of obesity of the population. There were some other studies that showed an association between the amount of time which a child spends on playing the video games and his/her chance of having obesity. The association between the two was positive (American Society for Nutrition, 2011). What happens is that the concentration of glucose in the blood tends to increase when playing a game as compared to a normal time. The energy that is used in the body of the gamer is 21 kcal/h higher when the gamer is playing comparing that of rest. The gamers then eat more after playing a game. Considering the fact that the gamer spends most of his or her time seating when playing, and the amount of food that they eat after playing a violent game, their bodies may not be in a position to consume all the energy, which means that produced fat makes them obese.
Solution for Video Games
Since most children have an access to the violent video games at their homes, it is the duty of the parents to make their children play safe games. This can be done to by making children have some experience in the outside world. This experience should be the one away from any kind of television or computer (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2005). The parents should also learn that the video games act like teaching machines, which means that the child will always learn whatever is shown on the screen. When buying a game for a child, the parent should check the game ratings to see whether they are recommended for the young people. The parent should also try to limit the amount of time which the child spends in front of the screen, which should not exceed two hours per day. The parent should always monitor the effect which the video games have on the child. If the child shows a degree of aggressiveness when with his friends and siblings after the violent games, he or she should be stopped from playing these games. The parent should limit the amount of time which the child spends playing computer game to about six hours a week (Nichols & Thomas, 2004).
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Conclusion
Researchers show that video games that contain violence scenes may have some effects on the children who play them. Most of the children tend to be more aggressive when they play the games as opposed to the situation when they do not play violent games. Most of the game addicts spend a significant part of their time playing violent games, since they want to complete a certain mission. This makes them neglect their studies and, hence, perform poorly in their academics. The gamers also use much of glucose when playing the games, since they think much and experience certain tension, which makes them eat more and leads to obesity. The parents should be in full control of the games that are being played by their children. This should help in making it hard for children to access to games that have mature ratings. Limiting the amount of time which is spent by the child in front of the screen can help wane violent games addiction.