essay

Instructor’s Name

Course Number

Date

Consequences of Television/Video Games Violence

Playing video games or watching television is common among people of all ages. This has made the video gaming industry to earn many dollars. Studies done have shown that girls spend more time on videos than boys. Additionally, teens spend more time on videos than younger children. Some videos connect to the internet and thus have enabled children to play games with people who are unknown to them. Exposure of children to violent media has made them imitate the violence. Adverse consequences have been observed on those children who play video games or watch television programs that depict violence. These consequences include aggressive behavior, little sleep due to trauma, killings, rape, criminal behavior, poor class performance, inability to interact well with others, gender-based violence, and use of foul language.

Exposure of children to some violent television programs leads to involvement in the crime. Some programs show criminal activities and tactics that these children experiment. In the process, they get into crime and become a threat to society. They start robbing and thus make people not to do business in peace. This affects the economic status of people and their psychological health. People who are robbed and had no other finances get into depression. This affects the families of such people. Children can even be sent away from school due to lack of school fees. This shows how a lack of proper parenting can lead to big problems in society. Eventually, those kinds of criminals get caught and jailed. If not jailed, they are shot when caught stealing.

Children who are used to viewing content that shows violence are very abusive; they use foul language and thus are not respectful. This makes it hard to get along well with other people in society. Therefore, they are alone most of the time because nobody wants to associate with them. It is also hard for such kind of people to get employed to get retained in an organization due to their repulsive behavior.

Viewing violent content in televisions also makes children kill animals in the home. Some children kill cats or dogs when trying to do what they saw on TV. They shoot domestic animals when experimenting with what other people were doing on video. Some also go to the extent of killing people. There has been a case where a child stands at the rooftop and starts shooting aimlessly. In the process, people are injured, and others killed. There have been increasing cases of shootings in the US currently. Most of these cases are involving young people. These are issues that need to be addressed with the seriousness they deserve. .Parents need to be very careful in the way they are bringing up their children. The person who raises a child and how they are brought up determines their character in later life.

Children and young people who get addicted to watching video games and some of the violent television programs do not interact well with others. This because they always cause chaos and develop hatred towards other people. Nobody wants to associate with a violent person. They do not know the right language to use to talk to people. They use harsh and offensive language like the people they watch on television. This makes such children grow up not having excellent communication skills, and this might affect them later in life. Interacting with people makes a person learn a lot and even get opportunities. Antisocial people are thus likely to miss essential opportunities in life. Also, such people are not expected to be effective leaders. Leadership requires a person who can communicate and transparently put across issues. If a person who is entrusted with the leadership of the society lacks excellent social and communication skills, then it means that the society will lag in terms of development. Such kind of people has problems also in maintaining relationships in various aspects of life. Studies done have confirmed that excessive watching of video games in childhood is one of the causes of poor social skills.

Low grades are the other consequence of excessive watching of video games and television. This is because the children spend most of their time doing violent acts. Such kind of children does not commit themselves in school work. At school, they do not concentrate on what the teacher is saying and thus do not understand class content. They think of the videos they were watching and how they will watch others when they get home. They thus become absent-minded in class always. This situation continues, especially if the parents are not concerned about how the child is doing at school. Those children who are stubborn do not change despite beatings from the teacher. It is not surprising to find that some of the children who behave that way do not even carry a book to school and thus do not even write notes. These are the children who make much noise in class and disturb others when they are reading. They become a disturbance to the school due to cases of indiscipline. When exams come, they are usually unprepared and thus do poorly. Some of them are even held back, making their parents spend more money on paying fees.

Video games and televisions also lead to the development of aggressive behavior in children. The children become violent and rough to other children. They engage in fights easily because they want to participate in doing what they saw on television or in a specific video. They usually provoke other children so that they can fight. In the process of fighting, they hit other children the way they observe on the visuals. Sometimes, this leads to bad injuries to other children. Cases have been heard where children have been admitted due to injury by one of their classmates. Those parents use much money to pay hospital bills. Also, such parents end up not being in good terms form thee onwards. In some high schools, cases of the shooting occurred where a student killed fellow students and teachers. A shooing by a student occurred in Columbine high school, where 13 students were killed.

Lack of enough sleep is the other effect of video games watching. This is because of the trauma that results from watching them. They thus doze off in class and cannot concentrate. This leads to poor performance. Such kind of children also engages in quarrels with their parents due to poor class performance. The main reason being that they do less reading.

Some children also engage in rape due to drug abuse. This results from watching video programs that have such actions being portrayed. Some children also steal money from their parents to buy drugs, and this ruins the relationship with their parents. They also engage in drug peddling, which makes them be expelled from school. This acts as a big blow to the parents who have invested heavily in such a child. The other consequence of drug abuse include failure in classwork and being provocative. They also lead to unnecessary fights and injuries.

Gender-based violence also results from watching videos that depict violence towards women. Such children develop a bias towards women and do not respect them. This leads to relationship and marital issues later in life. There has been the case of marital killings nowadays; some of these instances are influenced by childhood exposure to violence. Parents should be very cautious about what their children are viewing. They should be the ones showing their children the way to avoid being blamed in the future.

Conclusively, the consequences of television/video games violence are dire to young children and society at large. These children engage in criminal activities, rape, use of abusive language, gender-based violence, among others. Parents should ensure that their children do not get exposed to such material. Other tips that parents should use, including involving other community members so that they can ban violent media. Also, they should talk to their children about avoiding certain media content. Besides, they should watch television with their children and avoid giving their children TVs in their bedrooms.

References

Shapiro, Jordan. “A Surprising New Study On How Video Games Impact Children.” Forbes, 27 Aug. 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/08/27/a-surprising-new- study-on-how-video-games-impact-children/#cd9b4a975564. Accessed 19 Nov. 2019.

Video Games and Children: Playing with Violence.” American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 1 June 2015. https://www.aacap.org/aacap/families_and_youth/facts_for_families/fff-guide/Children-and-Video-Games-Playing-with-Violence-091.aspx. Accessed 19 Nov. 2019.