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  • Essay / The effects of video game violence on children's desensitization

    It's no coincidence that America attributes a model that thrives on controversial issues. Do you choose not to believe me? Go to the nearest gas station or grocery store and I guarantee you will find a multitude of tabloids discussing the personal lives of Hollywood celebrities and the problems they face. For example, Miley Cyrus became a hot topic for weeks due to her lackluster and inappropriate performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Additionally, the correlation between whether an individual is willing to discuss her scantily clad clothing or the amount of money she contributes to private organizations shows that one prefers to gossip about the negative rather than the positive. Rightly so, personal debate makes us human. We are passionate about the topics we believe need to be championed and advocate for topics grounded in common knowledge and moral law. Today's society is built on a melting pot of different actions experienced by both children and adults. Therefore, different cultures have different beliefs regarding what is necessary for their children to grow mentally and physically. Looking back on the controversy over whether violence in video games contributes to the desensitization of a child's social, emotional, and physical context, one might agree that children are heavily influenced by what they see and this at what they react to in specific environments. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay From a societal perspective, children are surrounded by an accumulation of video games ranked according to their ranking by the Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB for short. In fact, according to Karen and Jody Dill, the two authors of “VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE: A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE” state: The popularity of video games has reached phenomenal proportions. Video game industry leader Nintendo sold an average of three games per second during the 12 years from 1983 to 1995, for a total of one billion games sold. To put that number into perspective, that's one game for every teenager on earth, or one game for every person in North America, Europe, and Japan, or enough games that, if placed end to end, would 'would extend around the equator two and a half (Dill and Dill 408). In perspective, the statistics are based not only on children, but also on adults who also play video games. However, the Dill sisters also mention: Egli and Meyers (1984) found that 13% of adolescents surveyed exhibited what could be described as compulsive behavior toward video games and sacrificed other attractive activities to be able to spend money and time to video. game. Braun and Giroux (1989) referred to video games as “. . . the perfect paradigm for inducing “addictive” behavior,” and noted that this, “. . . should be of concern, particularly with regard to children as consumers” (p. 101) (Dill and Dill 409). Although some people would not agree with this information, it remains infallible that some societies contain children, who prefer to surround themselves with a virtual reality containing their favorite animated characters who actively participate in leisure activities outside or by other means. My own niece, for example, will come to my house and play with her Nintendo DS, a compatible video game console, instead of spending her time entertaining her stuffed animals or creating vivid imaginary worlds. I don'tI'm not saying that video games destroy children's imaginations, but I believe they play a role in influencing what children imagine. Additionally, Dill and Dill use information from L. Berkowitz and R.G. Geen to correlate the relationship between television and video game violence and suggest that the more content children are exposed to, the more likely they are to reduce their inhibitions. with regard to what is considered content. socially acceptable behavior. Coincidentally, they claim that "behaviors learned" through video games become justifiable because that is what the video game depicts, for example Mortal Combat (Dill and Dill 410). By learned behaviors, I am referring to when a child sees a man he idolizes karate cut someone's neck, he sometimes imitates the movement in turn. This is not to say that the next child who sees such a picture will mirror the action, but children have a way of repeating actions and behaviors that they have learned in their own society. In addition to being desensitized to learned behaviors, children's educational journey is sometimes negatively affected compared to what society standardizes as acceptable. Several authors of “Brains on video games,” an article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, said: “At the same time, it is worth noting that the daily time spent playing video games among school-aged children is inversely correlated with school time. success, probably because time spent playing video games is time stolen from reading and academic studies related to the program” (Bavelier, Gentile, Green, Han, Merzenich, Renshaw 763). Plus, I for one can say that I've sacrificed missing classes in the past to relax and shoot a bunch of Nazi zombies or listen to people argue on Xbox Live. Go ahead and ask a child if they prefer to play with flash cards or a video game. The answer is usually obvious. He or she will choose the latter solution because, although it does little to stimulate the brain, the child is entertained by the bright colors and vivid images that the game involves. More importantly, by choosing this over studying, the action may become habitual and could inversely affect study behavior, or whether the child would be engaged in their studies in general. Children's minds absorb information like a sponge and are sometimes influenced by what they see and hear. A child's emotional development becomes crucial to the behavioral patterns he or she will exhibit later in life. Sometimes the content they are influenced by becomes detrimental to their emotional capacity and empathy. Michael M. Merzenich, one of the authors of "Brains on video games", raises his concerns and says: ...action games with antisocial (violent) content - which are particularly addictive and provide foundations for particularly strong motivation to bring about positive cognitive changes. – have been shown to reduce empathy, stress associated with observing or initiating antisocial actions, and increase conflictual and disruptive behaviors in the real world (Bavelier, Gentile, Green, Han, Merzenich, Renshaw 764). By reducing the empathy of a child, whose mind is still maturing and experiencing specific situations, this could be a factor explaining why he shows little or no interest in social or romantic relationships. One is simply to cut off the root before the bud has flowered and the flower stem is hampered; the bud will never bloom and the remains will become nothing. Likewise, when a child is at the stage where his emotions are deeply affected based on his experiences, he ispossible that his mind is hampered by constant exposure to violent video games. Also, two authors corresponding to the relationship of desensitization of children due to video game violence both noted: “Thomas et al. (1977) also suggest that desensitization occurs when an initial arousal to violent stimuli is reduced and thus changes an individual's current internal state. Similarly, systematic desensitization has been shown to reduce avoidance behaviors, and when there is no direct negative consequence of a fear-inducing behavior, there is a possibility of fear extinction ( Bandura, Blanchard and Ritter, 1969). Concerns associated with desensitization are that individuals may fail to notice aggressive events, perceive resulting injuries as less serious, feel less sympathy for victims, and have less negative attitudes toward violence (Carnagey, Anderson, and Bushman 2007)” (Becker-Olson and Norberg 84). The authors' concerns show that they believe that over a prolonged period of time, constant exposure to violent video games may explain why children may show less empathy towards emotional trauma such as loss. or might become less affected by fear. Now, I'm not suggesting that children will turn away from the closest person and lash out due to their rage, but they might participate in risky behaviors such as challenging heights or testing their courage in other dangerous ways. They may even see the learned behavior where their character can "respawn" if they die, so they in turn might believe they possess the same omnipotence and try to dive off their roof or a cliff. By knowing the importance of a child's emotional development, we can help shape their minds in a positive way by monitoring the content of the games they play. Statistics and analyzes show that children's physiological development can be hindered due to their exposure to violent video games. Finally, children are socially and emotionally subject to external exposure, but their involvement fundamentally relies on their physical well-being. However, video game violence has been shown to negatively impact the brain and other physical aspects of a child's life, which in turn affects how they interact emotionally and social. More specifically, Marilynn Larkin, the author of “The Amygdala Differentiates the Response to Fear” collaborates with scientists and concludes that at the site of the amygdala, a memory gland in the brain, “the amygdala is not just there to mediate fear and anxiety, as many people think. It is a fundamental learning device that mediates the associations between stimuli and reinforcers, whether nice or mean, and thus the impact of these conditioned stimuli on future behavior” (Larkin 268). As has been said previously, statistics have shown how violence in video games can negatively affect a child's perception of fear and empathy towards different situations in their life. The amygdala is the brain's receptor for almost all emotional feelings. It acts as a memory transmitter to store information as well as a receiver. fight or flight response to dangerous situations. But try to imagine that this response is either hindered or completely interrupted. The similarity would be placing your hand on a hot stove without your brain's stimuli telling you to remove it. In turn, a person may experience grief or loss of a