--Original published at Sierra's College Blog
For this week’s first impression post, I chose to discuss the second option, which dealt with violence in the media. Over the last twenty years, people believed the increase of violence in children was caused by violent video games being produced by large industries. The graphics were becoming realistic, including violent scenes of blood, gore, and shootings. Many thought the violence within the video games was effecting the attitudes of the children in society.
From my perspective, I believed on average violent video games did not cause children to become more violent; however, I believed violence increased. In a few extreme cases, I believed some children, with a psychotic disorder or background, would take the actions from the video game and would apply them to real life situations. Many people knew video games were just a game, and the violence portrayed within them did not give a reason to reenact or display those behaviors. Also, I believed there was a positive correlation between the violence in video games and children’s violent attitudes. This did not mean that one variable, the violent video games, caused the violent attitudes. There was no significant cause and effect relationship. Temperament and other variables explained the rise of violence as well. Lastly, I believed the children who had an increase in violent attitudes and played these video games were not mature enough to handle the information and graphic scenes. The difference in the development of younger children and older teenagers or adults was significant in the way one would react after playing a video game.
I disagreed with calls to have violent video games permanently banned from society. Children who were not mature enough, or knew the difference between real and pretend, should not be able to purchase or play these specific video games. Parents would either make the decision to allow their children to play these games, or to restrict them from such games. The parents would make the final call, not the industry. Also, restrictions were placed on games for mature adults or older people. This implication described violence was prominent in the games, which meant younger children were not recommended to buy these video games.
From personal experience, my cousins and friends all played violent video games. These games included hunting, wars, and battling until the opponent was dead. These video games were fake, not real situations in life. My relatives had not become violent or aggressive due to these video games. Even if some people became more violent due to specific video games, it did not mean all children would have the same problem. This situation reminded me of another similar case. If one person used a gun to murder people, did that mean all guns had to be banned from society? One person’s actions did not mean the piece of equipment had to be forbidden by everyone.
After I reviewed this scenario, I believed violence had increased over the decades; however, the violence through video games was not the only or major factor.