The parents claim that their children behave differently when playing video games. The parents say that their children play on their consoles and computers all day and it affects their emotional and mental behavior. They claim that their children seem to lash out more and talk back to their parents more often since acquiring their childrens games. The parents blame the countless hours of playtime that their kids lose themselves in day in and day out without stopping for brakes. And that their children are mimicking the behaviors of the violent games that they are playing. According to the APA Task Force on Violent Media, they concluded that violent video game use has an influence on aggression based on our analysis of relevant literature directly addressing the topic. This effect manifests itself as both an increase in adverse consequences such as aggression, thought processes, and influence and a decrease in positive results such as social interaction, compassion, and sensitivity to aggression. There is no single risk factor that causes an individual to behave aggressively or violently on a consistent basis. Aggressive or abusive activity is most often the result of a confluence of risk factors (Berkowitz, 993; Eron, Huesmann, Lefkowitz, Walder, 974; Ferguson et al., 203). And the studies that they reviewed showed that video games are one of the risk factors involving violence. But some research shows that its the outcome of the game that can lead to aggression, not video games in general. And not only that but the degree of difficulty that a certain game has can change the result of each behavioral outcome. For example, lets say that youre playing Animal Crossing or Minecraft even, those types of games are easy to say the least. In Animal Crossing you plant crops, invest in making your home, create your island in the way you visualize it to be. A fun relaxing game such as this wouldnt be the sole reason for a childs aggressive behavior. But lets say they play a game such as Counter Strike wherein the competitiveness of the game itself may result in the child being more focused and invested, wanting to win every round but he keeps losing. The problem isnt the game itself but the desire of the child to win and improve upon his own mechanics and failing to do so that ultimately led to higher stress that turns to aggression. The study that was conducted by Przybylski A., Deci E., Ryan R. and Rigby S. titled Competence-Impeding Electronic Games and Players Aggressive Feelings, Thoughts, and Behaviors used several studies with different types of methods to control the competence and a variety of ways for examining aggression. This test indicated that the play impeded or interrupted the competence of a player resulting in a higher level of aggressive feelings, thoughts and behavior. According to the findings, player perceived competence was directly correlated to gaming motivation, which was in turn negatively related to player aggression. On the whole, this pattern of effects was discovered to be independent of the
existence or lack thereof violent game material. And in conclusion the violence in game itself does not cause violent behaviors.
Another claim by parents and adults is that video games affect the mental and behavioral growth of adolescence. Many claim that the reason why their children are doing bad in school is because they invest too much of their time in playing video games and that they dont even put in an effort anymore due to this. And an increase of aggression towards their classmates and teachers have been seen, especially those who play a lot of violent games which shows a lot of blood and gore. The study The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits on Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance stated that there were six hundred and seven students ranging from 8th grade to 9th grade who studied in 4 different schools who participated in this study. The result they gathered was that kids who indulge in playing these types of violent video games had the tendency to be more aggressive and hostile to their teachers, get into physical arguments that may or may not lead to bruises or the other person getting hurt and have far lower grades than their classmates. They have also found pathways of mediation that linked hostile relations between violent video game exposure and the result of playing such games. Even though they may be affecting the behavioral growth of the adolescence it is only a short-term effect. And most of this panic is just false information, and even though children play and play those effects wont last their whole lifetime. Unlike what adult fear, those who play violent video games would be criminals or would fail in their classes because of this. This is especially provident in the news where they promote such false information to their viewers. And some analyst even goes to such lengths as to show faulty evidence that needs more research. From the article Video Games, School Success, and Your Child which was written by Romeo Vltell Ph.D. the time displacement hypothesis proposes that the amount of time spent playing video games is directly proportional to the time spent on academic works such as homework or studying. A typically young individual who plays video games on a regular basis has less time spent in academic work. But studies who compare the academic performance of a student who has a hold of consoles or other devices versus those who dont have no significant differences in their academic performance. Since video games commonly have difficult mechanics especially those who are competitively based this could hone the cognitive skills of the players, this means a regular play time of video games may improve the attention capacity, visual orientation and overall memory of the player. This is especially the case in young children who showed greater improvements than their adult counterparts, and through observation and data gathering they have found out that students who play video games regularly do better in their academic journey than those who dont play at all.