Monday, November 3, 2008

Are violent video games really that bad?

My kids don't have any video games at this point. My oldest is five-years-old. He does talk about them. However, the popular video games-even for his age-are violent. They are mainly killing the enemy-Bad vs. Good guys. My son does know about video games. His friends have some. I am sure there are some learning video games for his age that would benefit him, but those aren't the ones he wants-of course!

From ABC: A new study links violent video games to aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Researchers found students who played violent games at the beginning of the school year grew more physically aggressive as the year wore on. Currently, 90 per cent of American children play some sort of video or computer games in their homes, and these games often depict physical fights, even homicides.

In fact, one study found violence in 9 out of 10 computer games rated appropriate for 10 year-olds. New research suggests all this exposure to violence in video games can make kids more aggressive. Psychologists from the U.S. and Japan studied more than 1600 school-aged children and teenagers over the course of a year. They found that students who played the most violent games at the start of a year were more likely to say they had been in fights, hit, or kicked someone by the end of the year.

The more often kids played the violent games, they more likely they were to show aggression. Researchers say the findings show violent games don't just attract aggressive kids - they actually have the power to make kids more violent. They suggest setting more limits on acceptable levels of physical violence and killings in children's games.

Source: published in Pediatrics by researchers from Iowa State, National Institute of Media in the Family, Minneapolis and Tokyo, Japan

Do your kids have video games? Are there video games out there for older kids that aren't violent?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Methodist Medical Center's new online healthcare program, MyMethodist eHealth, is a proud sponsor of this blog post. MyMethodist eHealth is the secure link to your doctor's office that lets you request appointments, order prescription refills, update your personal health record, and more. Sign up for MyMethodist eHealth here.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

And that all has nothing to do with how those parents discipline their children? Generation X has gotten soft, my Grandmother is practically lethal with a wooden spoon. People are always jabbering on about how horrible such treatment is...well, in my opinion, not as horrible as kids getting into fights at school, using drugs and alcohol at young ages, cussing at their own parents, claiming they are incapable of taking exams due to ADHD or some other reason. I had a child in a martial arts class tell me he was going to stab me in the eye with a knife, and he was only 4! When asked, the parents said it was 'alright', b/c he was going to anger management classes. The kid was 4. What's he gonna do at the class, write nice words in crayon? Today's whole society as gotten lax, and now what, we're claiming there's all these other factors that are causing kids to become more aggressive...why don't we just take a look at the parents, that's where most problems originate and/or are allowed to originate from in the first place.

 
Template by lollybloggerdesigns. Design by Taylor Johnston.