Ever since Spacewar! (the first-known video game) came out in 1962, video games have proliferated around the world. A study done by Spil Games reported that “1.2 billion people are now playing games worldwide, with 700 million of those online” (geekwire.com). This staggering statistic is “yet another reminder of how quickly the gaming market is growing” (geekwire.com). This gaming market is spread across all ages. Its becoming a popular past-time among kids, because video games are heavily marketed towards them. According to the NPD, “91 percent of kids between 2 and 17, or 64 million people, are playing video games”, which is “up 9 percentage points compared to 2009” (cnet.com).
The exposure of playing video games to these children (aged 2-17 years old) has fascinated the child’s mind to play these games, possibly due to factors such as the vibrant colors and the plot of the game play. This fascination might lead to excessive video game usage, which often results in an addiction. Public response to a video game addiction has been that is simply is not true, but there are various studies that can be seen that highlight the various types of negative symptoms such as hindered child development. The facts put out by these studies do not deny that a video game addiction is present.
When people think of an addiction, they are most likely to associate this word with substances, such as alcohol or drugs. What most people don’t realize is that doctors recognize behaviors in respect to addiction. A psychiatrist named Michael Brody, MD figured out the “following criteria: 1. The person needs more and more of a substance or behavior to keep him going. 2. If the person does not get more of the substance or behavior, he becomes more irritable and miserable” (webmd.com). Compulsive gaming meets these criteria.
There are also two types of video games, equating to two types of addictions. The first type of game is standard R.P.G’s (roleplaying games). These games are designed to be played by a single person and “involve a clear goal or mission, such as rescuing a princess” (psychguides.com). The addiction that presents itself in these types of games is often because of the player trying to complete the mission, beat the top high score, etc. The other type of video game is games that involve multiple players online, or M.M.O. (massively multiplayer online). Because these games are played online, they often have no ending, so they can become very addictive. People, who play these types of games and become addicted, are able to “temporarily become an online character” (psychguides.com). It is also a place where the person can escape from reality. For some people, online games and the communities are “where they feel they’re the most accepted” (psychguides.com).
What really causes video game addictions though? People will most often say that it is the digital screens and the games that they are designed to pull them in and keep addicted. Others will say they do not want to be apart of the outside world. And some will say that they have no idea. The current “accepted model of addiction comes from the idea that the thing that the person is addicted to is the thing that is causing the addiction” (aspergerexperts.com). So this can pertain to anything including cocaine, alcohol, phones, and even video games. People, who are addicted to video games are usually the people having a hard time connecting to the outside world around them. So they turn their attention to video games in hope of numbing the pain, and connecting with something that can be dependable for them.
Video games, as popular as they are, are becoming a “popular leisure activity in many parts of the world” and therefore we are seeing an “increasing number of empirical studies that examine the small minority that appears to develop problems as a result of excessive gaming” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). A study was done in 2013 at the University of Bergen and was carried out by Norwegian Gambling and Foundation Authority. The study’s goal was to investigate the “prevalence rates and predictors of video game addiction in a sample of gamers, randomly selected from the National Population Registry of Norway” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). The results were that there were “1.4 % addicted gamers, 7.3 % problem gamers, 3.9 % engaged gamers, and 87.4 % normal gamers” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). It also identified factors that are associated with video game addiction such as being male, young in age, living alone, being born in Africa, Asia, South or Central America, scoring low on conscientiousness and high on neuroticism, and having poor psychosomatic health.
While video games are widely popularized to all ages, the people who play them are exposed to the negative effects that video games can cause, especially children. Therefore, children should not be exposed to video games under the age of 16. In this paper, there are three arguments presented as to why children should not be exposed to video games before the age of 16. The first argument is that child development is hindered. The second is that video games produce more negative than positive effects on children. And the final argument is that children are more prone to violent behavior.
Child development can be hindered by excessive video game usage. In America, 81% of youths play at least once a month, 8.5% of them are addicted and “the average 8- to 12 year-olds now plays 13 hours of video games per week, while the average 13- to 18-year-old plays 14 hours of video games per week” (Metrics 2.0, 2007). Because video games are such a prominent thing in their lives, it is difficult to prevent them from playing video games entirely. Studies found that “students who had played a violent virtual reality game had a higher heart rate, reported more dizziness and nausea, and exhibited more aggressive thoughts in a posttest than those who had played a nonviolent game” (Cesarone, 1998). Although these studies don’t show if aggression is increased in their experiments, they are able to observe behavioral changes that include more aggressive patterns.
Kids are spending way too much time playing video games than playing outdoors. By spending too much time on video games, kids are less likely to go outside. They are less likely to become involved in extra circular activities, which hinders their social lives. Obesity is becoming a growing problem among children in the US, and video games is not helping it. According to the CDC, in 2009-2010, 12.1 percent of children ages 2 to 5 are obese, 18 percent of 6 to 11 year olds are obese, and 18.4 percent of 12 to 19 year olds are obese. These percentages do not account for the overweight children. The CDC states that children should have an hour or more physical activity a day, at least 3 days a week. Within this physical activity, exercises should include aerobics, muscle-strengthening, and bone strengthening exercises. This ensures that the child lives a healthy lifestyle. By spending much of their free time on the computer or on their game console, kids are not going out and participating in activities that will keep them physically fit.
Playing video games produces more negative effects on children, with few positive effects. Video games often promote violent behavior. Video games do affect child development by “centering on violence, anti-social tendencies and behaviors, and increased aggressive thoughts and feelings” (mathrider.com). In a study done by Anderson & Bushman, children who watched or played video games, with a lot of stimulated violence, showed sign of immunity to it and more inclined to act violently themselves too. The American Psychological Association found that there is direct correlation between violent video games and aggression. A researcher named Henry Jenkins, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that games, like Grand Theft Auto, and their popularity coincide with decreased juvenile crime rates. He concluded that teenagers are able to leave the emotional aspect of the game whenever the game is over. The effects of video games are worsened by the interactive nature of the game. A lot of games reward children for being violent (like killing someone for points) and thus, the act of violence is repeated. The child is always in control of this violence and the active participation in this leaded to learning behaviors.
Video games promote anti-social behavior. If too much time is spent playing video games, this can lead the child to feel socially isolate and also might spend less time doing other activities (like homework). A study done by researchers at the North Carolina State University, New York, and University of Ontario Institute of Technology found that gamers do not replace their offline social lives with online gaming, but rather expand them. One of the most violent mass-shootings in the US, the Sandy Hook school shooting, has suggested to be linked to violent video games. Adam Lanza killed 27 young children and adults on December 14, 2012. During the investigation, people described Lanza as a socially awkward individual, who spent most of his time playing video games. The investigation report lists that 12 violent games were found in the basement of his mom’s home where he lived. These games included Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Left for Dead, Dead Rising, and Vice City and Doom.
Video games affect academics. Multiple studies have shown that students who spend their time playing video games, have a poor performance in school. A study by the Argosy University’s Minnesota School on Professional Psychology showed that video game addicts spend time arguing with their teachers, fighting with their friends, and score lower grades.
Other studies show that kids who skip homework to play video games, admitted that their video game habits were affecting their performance at school. In addition to the wide amounts of negative effects, there are some positive effects to children who play video games. One of the main benefits of playing video games involve the enhancement of mental skills (raisesmartkid.com). Playing games such as Angry Birds help children train the brain to come up with creative ways to solve puzzles. Video games can improve hand-eye coordination, fine motor and spatial skills. When playing strategic games, children can learn to multitask. It can also induce quick thinking.
More positive effects that can come from video games are: accuracy, anticipation, situational awareness, developing reading and math skills, perseverance, and many more (raisesmartkid.com). Video games introduce children to technology and the online world. The child is able to more comfortably get used to computing. Video games can be a bonding experience. Video games can make learning fun. Kids like games because of the colors, animation, and the interactive challenge and the rewards of winning. It keeps your child motivated to keep learning.
Children, who excessively play video games, are prone to be more violent in behavior than children, who do not play video games. Researchers have reported experimental evidence linking violent video games to more aggressive behavior (yvpc.sph.umich.edu). Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents, Anderson, Gentile, and Buckley provide an in depth analysis of three recent studies. These studies conducted compared the effects of interactive media like video games, versus passive media like television and movies on aggression and violence.
In the first study, they found three findings: “1) participants who played one of violent video games would choose to punish their opponents with significantly more high-noise blasts than those who played the nonviolent games; 2) habitual exposure to violent media was associated with higher levels of recent violent behavior; and 3) interactive forms of media violence were more strongly related to violent behavior than exposure to non-interactive media violence” (yvpc.sph.umich.edu). The third study results indicated that children who played more violent video games early in a school year changed to see the world in a more aggressive way and became more verbally and physically aggressive later in the school year. Violent video games are precursors to violent behavior. Dr. Olsen pointed out that video games have a correlation to bullying. Video games have an indirect effect on violent behavior by increasing the factors that cause it.
Video games should not be hindered to children over the age of 16. Even though some video games are violent, not all video games widely popularized to all age groups have violence located within in them. Some games on the market are geared to teach kids lessons on an academic level. One reason to not hinder the age limit is because children can learn academic lessons from video games. Another reason is because video games are great ways for kids to connect and socialize with one another. Because of the advancement of technology over the years, gaming consoles like Xbox, have created platforms, like Xbox Live, to create communication while playing video games for kids. So for all these reasons, violent games should not be the reason as to hindering video games to an age limit once and for all.
Even though there are video games that produce violent content within them, not all video games open to the public are violent. Many video games out on the market are academically inclined. These video games usually do not contain violent content of any sort. They are solely based on education. These educational video games are “examples of computer-assisted learning objects, representing an educational strategy of growing interest” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). Because our world is becoming more advanced in technology, video games are being produced to help advance “traditional passive learning methodologies to an active multisensory experimental learning methodology” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). In a study done, their objective was comparing a computer-based learning method to a traditional learning method, to see if there were any difference in rendition of knowledge of the two methods. Undergraduate students participated in the study, and randomly selected one of the learning methods. Their “prior knowledge, short-term knowledge retention, and long-term knowledge retention” were used in an assessment with a multiple-choice questionnaire (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). The students’ performances were compared. The results concluded that students who received the computer game-based learning method did just as well compare to the traditional learning method. The only difference was the computer method helped student retain short-term knowledge and the traditional method helped retain the students’ short-term knowledge and long term-knowledge. This study is a perfect example of why video games are great academic tools. Computer-based learning methods help a student retain knowledge of the lesson being taught, through the computer-based game. If video games were limited to children over the age of 16, children under the age of 16 would not be exposed to the teaching-methods of games. Therefore, limiting children from being exposed to video games, before the age of 16, can hinder their academic development from games that can help them.
Another reason why video games should be open to all kids is because any child can be able to connect and socialize with other kids over video games. These days, technology has advanced to where kids can connect with others over the internet. They have included this in gaming platforms. Any kid can talk to another other the internet with this platform. In a study done by Tobias Greitemeyer and Slivia Osswald, he found that prosocial games lead to prosocial behavior. In their experiments, they found that people who played a pro-social compared to a regular/neutral game were “most likely to engage in helpful behaviors such as picking up a box of pencils spilled…” (psychologytoday.com).
In conclusion, children should not be exposed to video games under the age of 16 due to the negative effects accrued during game play. The hindered child development, the many negative effects and the susceptibility to violent behavior are all factors as to why children should not be exposed to them until after the age of 16. Even though there are video games meant to academically teach, there are still video games that have no positive aspects. Kids are more likely to play that game, rather than the academic one. These types of games produce the addictions, because these games, like violent shooting games, entice the player to strive towards a goal.
For this reason, we should prohibit games to children under the age of 16. The addictions caused are leading to way too many negative effects on children. These video game addictions hinder child development. If child development is prevented by these video games, many children would be and are left behind socially and academically around the world. To prevent this from happening, there should be a limit set in place for children playing video games.