The Effects of Violent Games on Children

Imitation

• The most immediate concern about violent video games is that children will imitate what they see and do during real life. Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, University of Michigan's director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics, says in a CNN article that video games can teach children that the world is a dangerous or hostile place. During the games, children will solve conflicts in a violent manner. This is different from just seeing a violent movie, the child is actually initiating and responding to violence with their own actions. These actions might bleed into their daily interaction with peers or authority figures. Their brains are being trained to use violence to solve problems rather than words.

Desensitization

• Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann says that second side effect of children playing violent video games is desensitization. Video games have the potential to rob the emotional impact violence should naturally have on children. They become numb to the physical pain of others or the destruction of property. When they become annoyed or even enraged, that healthy fear of violence might not be there to hold them back from acting out.

Mixed Messages

• Parents spend a great deal of energy trying to teach their children that hitting, kicking, biting or otherwise hurting another person or thing is wrong. Then those same children flip on a video game where these violent behaviors are now funny, cool or heroic. The children are receiving mixed messages, which can result in confusion. Slowly, their practical jokes could become more physical, their arguments more intense, and their tempers more sensitive.

Skeptics

• While a study conducted by Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., strongly suggests ties between violent video games and overly aggressive children, skeptics still persist that video games are not to blame. It could be argued that naturally aggressive children are the ones drawn to violent video games, while nonaggressive children have little interest in violent games to begin with. Nonaggressive children generally find nonaggressive ways to spend their time. While this argument acknowledges that a child who plays violent video games will most likely be more aggressive than a friend who does not, it points out that the aggressive child could be this way with or without the encouragement of a video game collection.