| Ya Yun Cheng (Kathy) | |
| The Impact of Video Games on Children and Teens |
|
|
Whatever age, many people love to place video games. Do not think only small children and teenager love to play video games. Actually, many workers who are already 30 years old or even older and have a family may still enjoy play video games. For example, my uncle his wife told me sometimes she gets really mad at my uncle because he and his kids always play video games together. As a result, his children often don’t do their school work, and they often fail their school exams. As this consequence, video games are not only attractive to children and teenagers but also video games are also attractive some certain personalities. I think the reason why people love to play video games it’s because “ it is just too much fun.” Teens and children, people between the ages of 8 and 18, are the age group that desire learning and playing the most. Many articles and researches have proven that videogames have positive impacts on children in many aspects. For example, Patricia Greenfield, a psychology professor at VCLA, has studied the relationship between video games and intelligence and finds a positive relationship. Her research attributes playing videogames can increase IQ because players need to learn how to solve problems. On the other hand, videogames also deliver inappropriate content to children and teenagers and creates aggressive behavior in advance. As people know, nowadays’ videogames are getting more and more violent in killing scenes. Some research shows that a kid playing games for two years has practiced killing and murdering at least twenty thousand times. (Sing Tao Weekly, 2002) From this, we can easily see that videogames not only expose children to violence, but also teach them how to be violent. During the last several decades, computer games have emerged as one of the most popular forms of entertainment, particularly among adolescents. In 2001, revenues totaled $6.6 billion for video games in the United States. However, Retail sales of video games totaled US$9.4 billion in 2004, a 42 percent over 2000. That is even more than Hollywood took in at the box office last year! The sales of video game in US (dollars)
To conclude, as videogames become more and more popular, more teens and children are finding it easier to access many games with violent content. Although much research shows that videogames may have a positive influence on children, their negative impact is intolerable. Also, because the children have the nature to imitate things they touch, violent videogames have become the best teaching machine on killing. Instead of a prohibition on making violent videogames, parents should take the responsibility for choosing the proper game with their children.
|
|
| April 2005 | |