Why Violent Games are Perilous for Many Young Teens

Curtains are closed, doors are shut. Not a single light is shining but the screen, flashing with blood marks all over the place. You aren’t aware of the time but you know that your drowsiness is kicking in. You’ve got to finish the last wave of zombies before your mom comes breaking open your locked door and maniacally screaming in your ears. The sweat from your palms that drip down the controller. Your brain is dominated by the tension and stress of this game. Forget all the homework your teacher assigned. Your brain rotting every second you play that game. It’s already 1 a.m. and you’ve gone miles off your bed time limits. Let me ask you, are you facing those times when you just can’t turn off your gaming device? Is your mind full of the disturbing thoughts from your violent game? Well unfortunately, those thoughts will slowly start to sneakily crawl up your brain without you even realizing what they are capable of doing. Addiction to violent video games are able to lead you to many harmful consequences either it’s physical or mental.

Furthermore, violent simulation video games have also been dominating many children’s lives. It is able to make many young kids be more aggressive physically and change the behaviours of them. Most parents agree that violent games can reveal the more aggressive side of their children which leads them to disallow their kids to play violent video games. According to the The Guardian (Peter Etchell and Chris Chambers), through research between many different groups (parents, media psychologists, communication scientists, paediatricians) they have realized that many agree that violent games help the kid’s aggression to kick in more often than usual. “Averaging across all four groups of people, 66% agree with the statement whereas 19% don’t and 15% are on the fence…” Personally, I’m not a fan of many shooter games and my parents aren’t as well. They believe that shooter games are able to make kids think very dark and also very violent. This clearly portrays that many people, especially parents think that violent games are possibly the reason behind the production of aggression in many kids.

Relating to what was stated before, a game called “Killer” has become very popular around the New York High schools as stated in the New Yorker article, “High-Jinks: Shoot-Out” by Guy Martin. The game “Killer” is an annual event that happens every end of the year. Students are made to assassinate specific targets to conquer for victory. This game has a lot of potential of exerting influence of violence. “I’m looking for some good massacres early,”.... Just imagine how violent and gory this sounds. People, especially kids, shouldn’t be looking forward to massacres. There were many people who lost their loved ones as one decided that spraying bullets at innocent people was a good idea. This also illustrates that the kids are very amused by the killing part of the game and not really the teamwork, communication, etc… This could possibly influence kids to become murderers and criminals due to poor decision making, later on in the future. Although, others might believe that most students that are able to play video games like this would be educated as they would assume that they are able to go to school. In my opinion, even though kids are educated about these things, their brains are still in the state of developing, which means that their decision makings aren’t the best currently. Not only have I read many articles online about the violence of video games; as a gamer myself, I’ve also realized how violent some of the games might be. For example, I was playing Call of Duty: Ghosts about an year ago and the story mode was incredibly disturbing and to aid the prevention of addiction and influence of violence, I’ve stopped playing those kinds of games and moved on to other games which are more, I guess, “safer” to play.

Adding on to what was said before, these kinds of violent games are able to promote the use of dangerous weaponry such as guns and knives. This is a possible segway to murdering and many other sinful crimes. Violent video games will be nothing without the use of malignant weapons. The main reason behind the violence in the game is always weapons such as guns, swords, bows, etc… It has been revealed that one of the leading game making company have had a promotional deal with a gun selling company, McMillan Group and Magpul, to promote the sales of their guns in a game called Medal of Honor. Around thousands of people are currently playing this game. Although it might not sound as logical for videogames to make people buy guns but, it is still a chance that many younger fans of the game who still have a blurry vision of where the line between real life and virtual life is at can be very fascinated about the topic of guns and weapons. Not only has Medal of Honor promote the use of guns, other FPS games such as Call of Duty has also boosted the use of weaponry. In 2010, a Norwegian person, Anders Breivik has gone on a rampage after he claimed to have “trained” himself by playing Call of Duty. This

Many ponder on the idea of how violent games can impact the behaviours and thoughts of many teens and kids. As we get more fixated onto the fantasies of many violent games, we are able to grow on the fact that violence is amusing which will later on lead to many detrimental punishments. People who favour violent games over many other hobbies should learn to balance out their lives and also control the amount of time they spend on sheer entertainment. As others might not be affected as much by playing violent games, it’s still a possibility for many others and should keep in mind that violent games can actually affect your behaviours and thoughts.

By Youngchan