¶ … Violence in Web-Based and Computer Games on Adolescents
Playing video and computer games is a treasured leisure activity among many young people today, and these young players frequently prefer violent games. Studies suggest that exposure to media violence may adversely affect young people's attitudes and behavior. Further, self-concept is a key indicator of core attitudes and coping abilities, and, for adolescents, the evolution of the sense of self is a fundamental developmental activity (Buchman & Funk, 1996). The average adolescent in the United States spends over 6 hours a day in front of some sort of video screen such as a television, computer, video games, the Internet and movies, and the total actually exceeds the amount of time children spent in school today (Smoots, 2003). In fact, while watching or playing video games, children in the United States will have witnessed around 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 murders on television alone by the age of 18 years (Smoots, 2003). It is little wonder, then, that critics point to such activities as being especially harmful for adolescents, and seek to either ban them outright or ensure appropriate controls are in place to prevent impressionable young people from having access to them in the first place. However, critics of such views point to First Amendment considerations and the need to maintain an open Internet environment that allows unrestricted access, with parents being responsible for monitoring what their children do in the home and online. Amid this debate, there remains the harsh reality that video games and television programming are becoming increasingly violent in nature, and children - especially boys - are being drawn to these games in increasing numbers. This paper examines the arguments in support of providing additional restrictions over such media, followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.
Review and Discussion
Background, Overview and Incidence. According to Lachlan, Smith and Tamborini (2003), video games are the latest of the most recent forms of mass media to come under criticism for violent and female-bashing content
Video game critics argue that games such as Mortal Kombat, Duke Nukem, and Doom are not only inherently violent, but that playing such games may be having a harmful effect on young players. In fact, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman (1998) stated, "these games... are part of a toxic culture of violence that is enveloping our children, that is helping to desensitize them and blur the lines between right and wrong, and encouraging some of the most vulnerable of them to commit violence" (p. 1). Indeed, playing violent video games has also been implicated as being a potential contributing factor in the recent schoolyard massacres at Columbine High and Westside Middle School (Flatin, 2000).
However, there have also been several generations of Americans who have grown up with television now, and most of them have seen their share of violence on TV. As a result, in the past, parents and educators were primarily concerned with the effects of violence in television programming on children; today, though, young people are spending more time playing video games than they are watching television. "For parents and educators concerned with children's exposure to violence, this is not necessarily good news" (Wagner, 2004, p. 16). Some parents may be left wondering what all of the fuss is about, since violence on television has not necessarily impacted their lives in any discernible fashion; however, the evolving media and tactile stimulation techniques being introducing in video gaming products have only been recently studied.
A survey by researchers at Michigan State University of young people in grades five through university level showed that all of these children are spending at least as much or even more of their time today playing video and Web-based games as they are watching television, and that males spend about twice as much time playing video games as girls do (Wagner, 2004). According to a study conducted by the Media Analysis Laboratory at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, entitled "Video Game Culture: Leisure and Play Preferences of Teens," the video game industry has "already won 30% of the U.S. toy market, earning $8.8 billion in the U.S. alone - a share which is larger than the Hollywood box office gross ($5.2 billion) and 10 times the amount spent on the production of children's television" (Technology: Violence and Video Games, 1999, p. 173). The participants in the B.C. study ranged in age between 11 years old to 18 years old (but about 80% of them were between 13 and 15 years old).
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