Children and Video Games essay

Children and Video Games In a dark bedroom, a nine-year-old boy sits on the floor with glazed eyes. Dusty schoolbooks stay on the shelves, as this overweight child sits almost perfectly still while focusing all his attention on a television screen full of flashy graphics. It’s a picture typical of many boys his age all throughout the world. According to estimates released by the Center for Gaming Research last year, boys under the age of 15 accounted for nearly 64% of all video games purchased. It may be good business, but it’s causing a lot of problems. While it’s difficult to know the effects a video game has on a child, we can clearly see the negative effects video games have on children. The truth is parents should not allow their children to play video games because video games interfere with education, encourage poor health, and promote violence. Video games have had a large negative impact on the education of children. Literacy rates among children are declining forcing schools to change their curriculum because many students are not able to read at the same level as students 10 years ago. Many experts are blaming this on the popularity of video games. Reading is a learned skill that requires focus, concentration, solitude, and imagination. Video games are so fast paced and exciting, that many of today’s children find it difficult to sit still long enough to read even a few pages of any book. They are losing an appreciation for reading and as a result, their schoolwork is more difficult. Besides a video game’s effect on reading, it can also cause an overall neglect of required assignments. Games are often addictive causing kids to play them non-stop for several hours. Consequently, they don’t do their schoolwork and their grades are affected. Today video games are becoming the biggest obstacle to advancing education among young people. Video games have made the greatest contribution to many of the current health problems among children. All video games require children to stay in doors and require no physical activity whatsoever. Furthermore, these high intensity games often cause mental stress on players without the opportunity for physical activity. If nothing else contributes more to poor health, keeping children indoors does. Interaction with real people and nature is necessary for children to stay healthy. In addition, staying indoors limits a child’s exposure to the sun, the most abundant source of Vitamin D. A lack of this necessary vitamin can cause debilitating diseases. As you can see, playing video games contributes to an overall lack of exercise which itself will cause a child more harm than good. The biggest problem of video games is that they can easily influence children by promoting violence. Most video games contain violent content that often portray death, injury, and blood. In fact, the purpose of many video games is to kill the opponent. Violence in video games causes children to be violent themselves. As well as these games fueling violence among children, video games also show children that there are no consequences for violence. In fact, players may receive special privileges or earn more points when they kill people. In fact, there is no punishment for murder: quite the opposite in fact. It is an unnatural picture of violence and a distorted view of reality. Children should not be exposed to this kind of violence, and certainly not at the approval of their parents. An increase in violence among our kids will have a devastating impact on the future of society. Without a doubt, parents should not allow their children play video games. Video games are damaging the educational system for our children, contributing to growing health concerns among the young, and decreasing sensitivity to violence and death. We must be willing to take responsibility for the activities and education of our youth. We cannot just sit and watch while our children get fat, dumb, and mean. So turn on the lights, unplug the gaming console, and push that chubby nine-year-old boy out the door. It is time for our children to laugh and play outside together, to learn a work ethic through study, and to sit down to enjoy a good book before bed time. The future looks brighter already.