Essay Help on Violent Video Games

Playing different kinds of games has become a common activity for people from all spheres of life. Video gaming has become a million-dollar industry, generating far more income than DVDs and movies. It has emerged as an imperative source of entertainment not only for adults but also for children. Most of the children spend a fair share of their time in playing different video games. Violent video games are more attractive to youngsters than other video games such as sports, puzzle, and strategy games. However, video games are considered to have positive impacts on children’s growth, children should not be allowed to play violent video games because they do not only have detrimental impacts on kids’ physical and mental health but also have serious repercussions on social relationships.

The first reason why children should not be allowed to play violent video games is its adverse physical implications. Kids usually spend most of their time playing such video games that attract them to participate with keen interest without taking care of their health and they do not take a meal on time. In return, their health gets compromised badly and they end up with malnutrition and various other physical illnesses. Moreover, when adolescents playing violent video games their brains and hearts are overstimulated, which results in serious physical damage to their body and vital organs. When violent video games incite children to participate in different situations of tension and pressure, their heart rate and blood pressure automatically increase to a greater extent (Porter & Goolkasain, 2019). This hyper-arousal state of “do or die” while playing violent video games can also cause a heart attack and stroke in the future in children. Various researchers have also accepted the negative implications of violent video games on children’s physical health and declared that obesity is another noticeable adverse physical consequence of video gaming (Chaput, Visby, Nyby, Klingenberg, Gregersen, Tremblay, Astrup & Sjodin, 2011). Not only this, but elongated exposure to the blue light screen during playing video games also disturbs children’s eyesight as well as muscles (Mylona, Deres, Dere, Tsinopoulos & Glynatsis, 2020). A research reported a study that stated that “19% of the subjects experienced eye strain” (Mylona et al., 2020, p.2). Thus, due to the adverse physical consequences of violent video games children should not be allowed to play them.

The second imperative cause of not allowing children to play violent video games is the deteriorating mental health of children. The content of video games contributes to a great extent in developing a child’s mind. There is no denying a fact that the violent content of video games can lead to various unfavorable psychological issues in children (Tortlero, Peskin, Baumler, Cuccaro, Elliott, Davies, Lewis, Banspach, Kanouse & Schuster, 2014). Violent video games divert the student’s attention from their purposeful academic studies and in turn, poor academic performance is ostensible in kids (Wright, 2011). Moving further, children’s mental status also gets disturbed due to the foul language and fierce actions that children observe and learn from these violent video games. More amazingly, in recent decades technology addiction has evolved as a new phenomenon due to which millions of youngsters are prone to a variety of mental illnesses and psychological issues (RC Psychiatrists, 2020). Children’s addiction to various violent video games causes them to adopt such aggressive behavior that they observe while gaming, which leads them towards several emotional repercussions as well (Park, 2014). Take the case of a rising number of fights and skirmishes over trivial issues among children that never happened earlier at the time when kids were only known to healthy outdoor recreational games and sports (Ward, 2010). Hence, violent video games disturb the mental growth of children and lead them to several psychological issues.

Lastly, violent video games are not recommended for children to play because they are damaging social relationships. It is implied that kids learn the social skill from observing and interacting with their parents and other members of society. If they rarely pay attention to the outside society and their parents, children fail to learn social skills that are imperative for them to become a productive part of society. Children who spend most of their time playing violent video games and too little time interacting with others have increased the cause of poor social relationships. Kids spending more time playing video games in front of the screen, face difficulty in making a sound decision and dealing with demands as well as problems of the actual world (Redmond, 2010). Not only this, but it has also been witnessed that kids who spent a fair share of their childhood playing violent video games in front of the screen without having much interaction with parents and other family members, had issues maintaining good relations. Bond (2011) states in his paper that “Exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal as well as aggressive thoughts, emotions, actions, and decreases positive social behavior” (p. 7). This indicates that children will have minimal social skills when they transform into an adult, social skills are needed to interact efficiently with others. Therefore, violent video games should not be allowed for children to play as they also result in psychosocial issues.

To conclude, there is no denying a fact that violent video games are detrimental to children in multiple ways. Due to violent video games, the physical health of children is badly affected that is they have eyesight issues, obesity and malnutrition. Kids’ mental health is also at stake owing to addiction to violent video games. Addiction to technology at a young age can seriously damage the psychological understanding of the children, they are more susceptible to anxiety, depression, high blood pressure and much more mental illnesses. What’s more, a poor social relationship is another grave repercussion of such video games. Therefore, kids should not be permitted to play violent video games as its repercussions in the term of physical and mental health as well as poor social relationships are far-reaching.

References:

Bond, D. (2011). The Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior and the Relationship to School Shootings, Thesis, University of South Florida, Retrieved on 28 July 2020 <https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=honors_et>

Park, A. (2014). Little by Little, Violent Video Games Make Us More Aggressive, Time, Retrieved on 28 July 2020 < https://time.com/34075/how-violent-video-games-change-kids-attitudes-about-aggression/>