Negative Impacts of Violent Video Games on Children

The first and most important reason why violent video games have negative impact on child is it’s negative physical consequences. Children spend most of their time in playing violent video games and they are unable to take their meals on time and at the end they faced malnutrition and other physical diseases. “Children and adolescents today spend most of their time going to school and consuming media. On average, children spend about forty hours per week watching television and films, listening to music, playing video games, and spending time online.” (Jodi & Brad, 2009).if we review our history, there were many researches, debates and articles going on this topic. According to (Gentile, D. 2004).Research has accepted negative effects of video games on children’s physical health, including obesity; video-induced seizures, postural, muscular, skeletal disorders and nerve compression are common in children.

The second reason is that violent video games cause mental disturbance in children. According to observation Violent video game makes children habitual and diverts their concentration from their purposeful school studies and at the result poor school performance is seen in children. “The amount of time spent playing video games has a negative correlation with academic performance” (Gentile, D. 2004).On the other hand children also learn obsessive language and violent behavior from these violent video games which disturb child’s mental status. The content of the video game plays important role in the development of child’s mind if the content is good it will help the child to learn new skills and if the content is not good it will leads to negative mental problems because both can affect the child brain to much extent. “Recent content analyses of video games show that as many as 89% of games contain some violent content, 12 and about 50% of the games include serious violent actions toward other game characters.” (Carnagey, A. 2004).

The third and final reason is that violent video games cause psychosocial problems. Firstly when child plays these violent video games, interaction with family is reduced which makes child psychosocially isolated. Secondly Children take these games as a role model and behave like the character which leads to aggressive behavior, obsessive language and other behavior problems. “Researches suggest that playing violent video games show increase aggressive behavior which leads to aggressive responses in children.” (The parliamentary office of science and technology. 2012).As early childhood is one of the important part of every child’s life and during this , whatever child learn that learning will continue in their further life so the negative impact which child take in early year it will also put impact on their further life. “Children are especially at risk for experiencing the long-term psychological effects produced through exposure to violent games due to the age factor.” (Jodi & Brad, 2009)

Some parents argue that these video games have positive impact on their children’s life. They become more skilled. Other argue that those children are good achiever at school who are familiar to these video games Another counter argument is that parents allow their children to play video games to relive anger and relax their body. Children become independent and confident make them busy and parents also do their work peacefully. Lastly people think that in this modern and technological age it’s very important to make their child aware about the technology and video games are the best way to introduced and make their child familiar to the technology.

Undoubtedly, there are many people who are in favor of violent video games but according to my personal point of view I counter argue that Firstly there is no sufficient data available to validate this clam that children who are playing video games are on the rise, but there is vast data available on the negative consequences of violent video games. The negative impact of video games is evident in many plate forms. (Schools, homes and friend circles). Secondly Children adopt the behavior of the character which they seen in video and act like them, and fight with their friends. “The more the child pays attention to the observed behavior, the more easily the child will learn the behavior” (Jodi & Brad, 2009).Thirdly Parents busy in their work and not bother about the content of video games which puts children in more trouble. Beside that researches also prove that violent video games cause negative consequences in children’s life and not just affect their physical health but also mental and psychosocial.

In conclusion it is true that violent video games are harmful for children in many ways. I want to recommend that it is important to aware parents and children about the negative consequences of violent video games, secondly parents should check the content of the video game to prevent child from different negative effects, and the amount of time children spend on playing video games should also be monitored. Thirdly it is very essential to introduce the technology to the children at the appropriate age and with appropriate way, so it will not harm the child. So it’s the time to take action and stop the negative consequences of violent video games which are physical, mental and psychosocial.