Violent Video Games: A Therapeutic and Developmentally-Friendly Way for Children to Relieve Stress12/16/2016 As the years continue to progress, video games seem to become more and more popular. More new games come out and the graphics improve little by little. I can easily say we’ve come a long way since the first video game that was released in 1958.
The game, known as “Pong”, was invented by a physicist named William Higinbotham. It essentially consisted of two skinny rectangles (the paddles) and a circle (the ball) where you would move the paddles up and down to reflect the ball back against the screen to the other paddle. If you missed the ball, you lost. Simple enough. The graphics in Pong compared to the games we have access to nowadays are extremely poor, especially in comparison to games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider or Mirror’s Edge. When video games first became a thing, people were designated as stick men - not like the perfectly proportionate avatars in games such as Call of Duty. However, these perfect or near-perfect graphics aren’t always a good thing - or are they? What comes with such detailed graphics as these are blood and guts, and much more detailed, violent games. Games such as Grand Theft Auto can be extremely gory and have mature content. While most are rated Mature (18+) or at least 14A, many seem to reach audiences far younger than 18 years of age. Children as young as 7 have been found enjoying these games on a daily basis. Now, is this healthy? Some may argue that exposure to such violent, graphic games at a young age is very harmful to those individuals, that these games can lead to aggressive behaviour and an increased interest in real violence. However, there is no such proof that links increased aggressive behaviour to violent video games. A false link has been created in the past with mass shooters and an involvement in violent video games. One in particular that has aided this false link was Adam Lanza. Adam Lanza committed a mass-shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut four years ago. He enjoyed violent video games. However, his favourite movie was ‘Babe’, a movie from the perspective of a pig, and he enjoyed listening to soundtracks from the movie ‘The Lion King’. In every other aspect of his life, he would not seem like the person to commit such a crime; the media stuck onto the one thing that made sense, which was his love of violent video games. This was a major assistance to the link between aggressive behaviour and violent video games. Many studies have proved otherwise against that link. In Japan and South Korean, graphic and violent games seem to be the base of their youth culture, being very popular, however they have some of the lowest teen crime rates in the world. Studies in Germany have suggested that only ⅛ mass shooters has shown even a small interest in violent video games. In fact, it is said that this aggressive behaviour comes from home life, how the person was raised, and mental stability rather than the activities the person enjoys. Somehow, millions of youth players across the world manage to resist the urge to mass murder other people on a daily basis. Playing violent video games not only does not increase the player’s aggressiveness; it also can act as a stress reliever at the end of the day. It actually decreases the likeliness that the player may commit a crime or do something violent since they are putting all their frustration into the game. Affordable forms of entertainment keep people inside and away from real crime and drugs. Other studies in Germany show that playing violent video games can be very beneficial to those who suffer from ADHD. It can be as effective as taking Ritalin, a medicine prescribed to those with ADHD, and can also lead to an increase in IQ and attention span. Even for the average youth individual, these graphic video games have many good sides to them; they help with fine motor and spatial skills, reward perseverance, and encourage problem solving. These games teach calculated risk taking, the importance of reading instructions and emphasise exploring and re-evaluating goals as situations develop. At the end of the day, if violent video games have that much of an effect on us that they could make us aggressive, we would all be running around to techno music and taking pills like Pac-Man. That, or we would be eating shrooms to gain magic powers like Mario. Violent video games have many more pros than cons and can actually aid the development of skills in youth players.
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