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Video games serve as an exceptional experience for the young minds and the adolescent both. They provide a chance where one can easily emerge within the story of the game. They require players to be active most of the time to reply and expected attacks and to deal with the unexpected blockages. In United States, it is estimated that almost 97% of the teenagers indulge in playing video games. The video games of today are based on stories and the lead characters are usually shown as heroes. Therefore, today’s game player is attached more to the video games both mentally and emotionally.

With the rise of these games, a concept shows around five decades ago, about fighting the enemy to death. The enemy may be a single or a group and with the emergence of modern ware games like Call of duty, Grand Theft Auto and Uncharted; the games manufacturing is more inclined towards creation of games closer to reality with the introduction of weapons and murderous. On one hand, these ‘involving’ games are really helpful because they increase certain skills in the player like problem-solving, multi-tasking, hand-eye coordination, pattern recognition, memory and concentration.

However, owing to the violent characteristic of these games, many parents are worried whether these characteristics can affect their child psychologically and whether it may lead to towards turn the player to be a criminal in a future. These violent games can certainly have a negative impact owing to their continuous usage. It has been observed that players tend to identify themselves with the character they are controlling. In shooting games, players identify themselves as killers and are rewarded for the murders in the form of increased level and gold coins. The players often indulge in bullying others and in proving their superiority in attempt of following their game leads. In certain theft missions, the game asks the players to steal something precious and they have to steal, kill and shed blood of the digital people in order to complete the assigned mission.

Such games instill a violent and attacker behavior within the players. Often players are seen to turn softly more unfriendly as they develop clash with their fellows. Playing violent games for long hours have an impact on the minds of players as it gives rise to violent urges and dangerous ideas. The effect of violent games have been a topic of debate among the scholars for years and in United States, over 98% pediatricians agreed to the fact that the long time exposure to violent content leads to an increase in childhood hostility.

The main reason of the entire aggression is the ‘active’ engagement with the violent concepts. Researchers agree that the content like stabbing, shooting and hand to hand combat provides the gamer with a stimulating experience. One example is the Tennessee shooting event in which two teenagers were so deeply influenced by the violence of Grand Theft Auto 3 that they started shooting the passing cars to experience it firsthand. A driver also got killed in this incident and added to the original negative effects of violent games. Even a research study of 2014 build on the idea that the shooting games have although leads to better hand-eye coordination, yet, their major disadvantage is the urge to shoot people in real life with accuracy; the target shot be on the head of person.

Another damaging effect of the violent games is the loss of sensitivity towards violent content in real life. In a Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, it was concluded that even playing the aggressive video games continuously for a few minutes can lead to less emotional reaction towards a real life violence situation. Players get less sensitive to violent actions and thus more prone to actually performing such an action. Where it makes the person more attracted towards committing a violent game mission in real life, it also leads the same player to feel less uncomfortable in watching an act of violence even if it’s a part of real life. In other words, these games lead to a decreased empathy and in some cases, it also has a significant effect on the moral values of a player. Violent game players are less likely to help the people in need and accept any violent acts easier than normal people.

Another negative impact of these type of games is the introduction of the concept to deal with conflicts using arms, weapons and other violence acts. The players play the game continuously and owing to spending long hours with the game, they face different real life situations lesser as compared to facing these various situations inside the game and ultimately, when they face such situations in real life, their first thought comes out to be the only solution they opted for in the game. This gives rise to increase crime in certain cases. Players learn the skill to deal with the social situations through these games and the violent content in these games play a vital role in shaping their personality and careers.

In conclusion, I would like to mention that though violent games, like other games have a positive impact in development of individuals yet, their negative effects are far more reaching than the positive ones. The positive effects of games include improved spatial coordination, judgment ability, memory, concentration, accuracy and introduces situational awareness among the game players. However, the negative effects include increased aggression, violent behavior, aggressive urges and loss of sensitivity for real life violence. These negative effects have resulted in causing negative psychological effects as well. But the extent of negative effects depend on the continuous time for playing so, care should be taken to play such games for the minimum time. And the game producers should also keep the violence content in the games to minimum to ensure least psychological effects.

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