Video Game Violence
In the April of 1999, two teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into their high school in Columbine Colorado and began a one-hour long shooting spree. After the smoke had cleared, twelve of their fellow classmates and one teacher had been killed. Neither of the children had a history of violence, but both actively enjoyed violent video games (1). The violence in video games was a major factor in teaching these children how to shoot other people in real life. Video games have more influence on smaller children. Today, there is a rating system on video games and, much like cigarettes, children are not supposed to buy them. Growing children are easily influenced by the examples laid out before them. A young boy who plays football and follows the sport closely is likely to resort to violence, as a way to deal with something, more than a boy whose role model is Gandhi because there is more violence in football. The same scenario works for a child who is interested in violent video games. A child who actively plays violent video games will resort to violence more easily than a child who has never been exposed to as much interactive killing because "Shoot em up" games do not teach
any other way of dealing with conflict. So, a young and impressionable youth would be more susceptible to resorting to violence if that child has been exposed to violent video games. Violent video games also can teach a person to aim and fire a handgun. A man, who had never fired a gun before in his life, walked into a church with a glock, a very popular handgun in games, and killed twelve people. This man was so accurate that twelve of his sixteen shots killed fleeing victims with one hit (3). Even trained law enforcement officers cannot equal this accuracy. The amazing part of the story is that the man had never shot a gun before, but for many years he had played arcade games where the player holds an electronic pistol and shoots targets on the screen, and was amazingly good. Video game companies, much like cigarette companies are increasing the advertisements that are geared towards children as a way to make money (2). Studies have shown that violence sells; all the most popular video games released today contain some violent theme (2). As technology increases, video game makers are able to include real life weapons that teach children to operate this technology in real li
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 805
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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