Are They Really Bad?

                                ARE THEY REALLY BAD?

By: Rondel Calloway

Most kids enjoy lounging around spending their free time playing video games. There’s nothing wrong with playing video games. There’s so much you can learn from video games. What you learn might not be positive but your still learning. Who cares that you learned how to steal a car or learned to break into someone’s house.  These are things people think children learn from video games. 

People tend to think video games are bad because studies show that prolonged exposure to video games can desensitize people to violence. It also shows that video games can make the players more aggressive towards other people. According to the “Review of Research on the Impact of Violent Computer Games on Young People”, written by Raymond Boyle and Matthew Hibberd in 2002 Robert Steinheaesuer killed 16 people. They think that his actions were influenced by the popular computer game “Counter-Strike.”

            Yes this may be a bad thing especially since there are over 36 million gaming consoles in households throughout the United States.  The video game industry makes over 9 billion dollars a year.  This may be true but that doesn’t mean that all the video games are bad. Mary Schlimme says that video games can have a positive effect on children. She also thinks that video games can help improve children ability to solve puzzles and create different solutions to problems. Gaming companies like Leapster help children learn the alphabet and how to read, but it’s not just the PG games that teach kids new things. Assassin’s Creed 2 is rated M for mature that means that there is blood, gore, and possibly suggestive themes. It also takes place in Italy and it indirectly gives the player a history lesson about the famous artists that lived back in the 15^th century.  Another point she makes is that playing video games comes with two major cons.

The first is the player becomes less socially active and they become too attached to their gaming console. The second con is that the gaming console becomes a source of addiction. By playing the player then gets an emotional high aka an adrenaline rush. So the player continues to play so they can experience this emotional rush. These may be two major drawbacks but Mary Schlimme still thinks that the pros of video games still out weigh the cons. Video games are not the source of violence in a teenager’s life.

When the Virginia Tech Massacre happened there was no sign that Seung-Hui Chao was influenced by video games. In 2004 there were 1,972 video games released, there were also 1,423,677 crimes committed by teenagers. In 2005 there were 2,089 games released, there was 1,360,088 crimes committed by teenagers.  With the rapid growth of video games in the United States teenagers are becoming more involved with them.  They might be the reason why the number of crimes that were committed by teenagers has decreased from 2004-05.  Ultimately video games can be the reason why the player is in the house playing the game instead of doing something that could ruin his/her life.