Video Games and Their Effect

Introduction
The children of today are surrounded by technology and entertainment that is full of violence. It is estimated that the average child watches from three to five hours of television a day! Listening to music is also a time consuming pastime among children. With all of that exposure, one might pose the question, "How can seeing so much violence on television and video games and hearing about violence in in music affect a child's behavior?" Obviously these media have a big influence on childrens behavior: we can see it in the way they attempt to emulate their favorite rock stars by dressing in a similar style and the way children play games, imitating their favorite cartoon personalities or super heroes. Studies have shown that extensive television viewing may be associated with, "aggressive behavior, poor academic performance, precocious sexuality, obesity, and the use of drugs or alcohol." Television, video games, and music are very influential and if their is too much violence available for children to watch, play, or listen to, this can sway their attitudes in a negative direction.
Video Games
Entertainment that can have a strong influence on a child's behavior is video games. Children today spend hours in front of the television playing video games, most of which have some sort of violent theme. A recent statistic found that, "the two most preferred categories were games that involved fantasy violence, preferred by almost 32% of subjects; and sports games, some of which contained violent subthemes, which were preferred by more than 29%." The most popular are the martial arts games, from which there are hundreds to choose from. The violence in these video games can desensitize children to violence and alter their perception of reality. It can give them the idea that violence is an acceptable way to deal with problems and conflict. But not all video games for children is negative, some can have a positive affect on children. There are many examples of educational and positive video games for children. For example, there is an entire business dedicated to developing more challenging and interesting software for children's use. Some programs are designed to allow children to explore different places or environments, whereas others are developed to teach and drill specific facts or academic skills. Playing computer games can give a child intellectual confidence and can help increase his or her motivation level. As you can see, video games has a strong influence on the lives and behavior of children, but whether that influence is good or bad is up to the program writer.
Do video games cause violence in society?

Video games have become a major occupation of majority of the youth these days. They spend hours on end concentrating on video games, some of which are apparently very violent, yet this is actually the whole idea.
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