One question we often ask ourselves when it comes to our children is “Are we doing the right thing?” We don’t always know what our children are doing when we are not around. One thing that I feel strongly about regarding children are video games. Video games come for children as young as 5 to as old as 18+. Some of our children are playing video games that are 18+, and unfortunately we are not doing anything about it because we are so consumed with our own lives.
The American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry maintains that “studies of children exposed to violence have shown that they can become ‘immune’ or numb to the horror of violence”, imitate the violence they see and show more aggressive behavior with greater exposure to violence. This is similar to Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment. Children observed adults beating up Bobo dolls and then they imitated their behavior. The study that Freeman mentioned in his article studied 377 American children from various ethnic groups – average age 13. He showed that kids with symptoms of depression of ADHD who played violent video games were no more likely than other kids to become bullies or delinquents. What can a parent do to control the use of a violent video game? As parents we worry, we are curious and we try our best to do well in raising our kids – but they don’t always listen to us do they?
In December of 2012 Adam Lanza shot and killed nearly 20 students between the ages of 5 and 10 and six adults workers. What do you think led him to do this? He was just one of the many mass murderers that was obsessed with shooter video games. Similarly, James Holmes the individual who went on a rampage in a movie theatre in Colorado during the showing of the Dark Knight Rises was also a frequent player of World of Warcraft. I believe that there is a trend between violence and video games.
Fletcher, L., & Movieguide. (2015, October 15). 14 mass murders linked to violent video games. Retrieved November 1, 2016, from http://www.charismanews.com/culture/52651-14-mass-murders-linked-to-violent-video-games
Freeman, D. (2013, August 28). Surprising upside shown for violent video games. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/violent-video-games-bullying-children-study_n_3823490.html