Violent Video Games: Effect on Child Development Every year the world of video games grows in influence and importance for the lives of American families. Amazing new games continuously outdo the previous games. Games now have higher levels, and new technologies unlock new possibilities for interaction, entertainment, and impact. According to MediaWise-Harris Interactive Poll, 9 out of 10 kids ages 8 to 16 play video games in their homes. Also the average age of gamers continues to increase, as the generation who grew up with the Atari and Nintendo continue to play video games well into their adulthood. Violent video games are successfully marketed to and easily obtained by children and adolescents. Children spend a great deal of time playing violent video games at exactly the ages that they should be learning healthy ways to relate to other people and to resolve conflicts peacefully. Boys on average play video games 13 hours per week and girls on average play 5 hours per week. Playing violent games is also related to children being less willing to be caring and helpful towards their peers. Research has shown that these effects happen just as much for non-aggressive children as they do for children who already have aggressive tendencies.
Studies by psychologists Dr. Anderson and his colleagues have shown that playing a lot of violent video games is related to having more aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Many games only offer an arena of weapons, killings, kicking, stabbing and shooting. These games have a stronger effect on children’s aggression because they are highly engaging and interactive, reward violent behavior, and children repeat these behaviors over and over as they play. Games can also confuse reality and fantasy and in many violent games, players must become more violent to win.
Video games have been to blame for many of the violent acts by students on school campuses. The shooting on Virginia Tech’s campus in 2007 was just one example where people first blamed violent video games for the reason why the shooter acted out in the way that he did. After the shooting Jack Thompson, a Florida attorney, said, "The problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me — common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it's glamorized on the big screen, it's become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we're going to have to start dealing with that." Kids see how easy it is to kill in video games and also come back after being killed and they think this can also apply to real life. Kids can also get the skills to carry out these violent acts from practicing