The+Rough+Draft

Violence in Video Games Video games are an important part of everyday life for a teenager these days. Most of them play violent, and/or graphic video games when they chose to do so. Although the kids don’t mind the rating associated with the video game, parents are concerned whether or not this is affecting children’s behavior. And many studies agree, such as this one posted by Sharon Jayson of USA Today, “A new review of 130 studies “strongly suggests” playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts and behavior and decreases empathy.” Because teenagers may be confused on how to differ from fantasy and reality the desensitization that occurs in playing them and the promotion of killing with rewards video games present to teenagers makes video games present aggressive behaviors in teens. The first topic would be how some kids do not have the ability to differentiate fantasy from reality. Some young minds have not developed a sense of what’s right and wrong, so not knowing that makes it hard to determine whether fantasy is ok or not (Jayson). Also, some teenagers play enough video games to where their fantasy basically is their life, and consumes their own day to day actions where real life decisions would be made. Another reasonable topic would be how video games desensitize the brain into making inappropriate content almost second nature to the player. Being around weapons and disturbing content makes it second nature to the player when they continuously observe it, whether in the real world or not. When the players react a certain way in a video game towards violence, they probably have similar reactions towards violence in real life (Saudi Press). All of this points towards the idea that repetitious violent content will eventually overwrite the brain and make violence second nature to the person. My last and final point would be how video games incorporate the promotion of killing through a reward system. In video games, your objective is to find and kill the enemy, then gaining a certain gift or gain of some sort of in-game importance, sometimes even getting the chance to “kill” even more (Muir 26). This is making killing seem almost like a reward itself, bypassing the whole moral value of not killing or harming anyone of any sort itself. It is sending the message towards kids that we want people dead, that our society promotes killing of this sort and almost honors the act. Although it is promoted through military actions, the basic act of killing is still present, and it just makes it look like killing is the norm in everyday morals, which to most people it is not. Rewarding killing is just not showing our children what we want in our future society. Video games cause aggression in young minds by making it difficult for them to differentiate from fantasy and reality, desensitizing them to violence, and rewarding them for crime. So if parents feel that their children are not mature enough to handle graphic violence, and moral wrongs, they should put a foot down as a parent and set limits for their kids. So that upcoming children will become less violent, and more caring towards others in the years to come. After finishing my outline, I transfered my ideas from it to a word document. Adding the thoughts into sentence form and sending it in for review. By my fellow peer Dustin. Who helped me edit it and get ready for my final draft.