When you stroll past the video game isle in your local Wal-Mart or Best Buy, what do you see? I’ll tell you what you see: you see guns and gore. You probably see more guns and blood on the cover of those video games than you would in the entire movie Rambo. Now don’t get me wrong; the violence contained in these video games may be appropriate for some, but not for most. I believe that the American population does not fully understand some of the serious consequences from the incorporation of these violent video games into our society.

From the use of these violent video games, our adolescent population is getting severely affected by these overwhelming and addictive games. Some of these violent video games include: The Halo Series, Gears of War, and the Call of Duty Series which has over 5 million innocent adolescence hooked onto its blood and guts action. Because of the extensive amount of players absorbed into this violent universe, it is affecting not just a few individuals, but rather an extremely large amount of the population including you and me. These violent video games are “running rampant” on our adolescent children by spreading their fierce qualities onto the kids and causing them to inherit violent behaviors. Help me censor and regulate violent video games in America, so that we may live in a much safer and stable nation.
As I elaborate more on how violent video games affect our adolescent generation, I would like to clarify that not all violent video games are bad. Yes, some games are appropriate, but only appropriate for the adults of the community and individuals without violent tendencies inherited. Although according to the Entertainment Software Association, the average online video game player is 30 years old and plays 13 hours a week, it does not mean that these overwhelming and addictive games are bypassing our youth with no effect. Also, according to the ESA, about 70% of US households play video games. You heard me right, that is 7 in every 10 households that are participating in this very harmful amusement.
If you believe there are no detrimental effects on our adolescent children from violent video games, I encourage you to sit back and relax as I politely inform you that you are mistaken. As our younger generation grows up in this hectic and stressful environment, they look toward forms of entertainment to relieve their stress and chillax. Imagine this: your son Bobby, after a long hard day’s work at school, needs to relieve his tension…what does he do to do this? He kills people. Now, he doesn’t actually kill real people, they are rather projections of people represented in the online community of gaming. But still, doesn’t something seem wrong with this? Well it probably does because something IS horribly wrong. With over 5 million kids engaged in this daily exercise of shooting, stabbing, and killing “people,” we must fix this growing problem. Let’s go back to Bobby…every time he “kills” a “person” he is rewarded with points or a level up; if he fails to perform the duty of terminating his enemies, he has consequences. Hold on now, if we break this situation down to the basics, we arrive at this: little Bobby is crowned with glory when he completes acts that are horrendously illegal in our society, and punished when he completes an act that is appropriate. Because of this system, it is evident that we are teaching our children to be more accustomed to performing these heinous acts of violence, and also being rewarded when completing them. By doing this, we are increasing the likelihood of violence and creating a blanket uneasiness in our nation, which not only threatens our society, but also you. Yes, you!
Now that I have you dying to know how to stop these video games from running rampant any longer…let’s take a break from this topic of violent behavior for a second, and focus on another major subject. Yes, I know it is hard to believe, but there is another situation I am leaving out. While violent video games may be creating aggressive tendencies in our youth, they are also desensitizing our adolescence from real-life violence. According to the authors of The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, they define desensitization to violence as “a reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence.” This journal performed a very interesting and effective study of desensitization of college students who played video games versus students who did not. After the researchers took baseline physiological measurements on heart rate and galvanic skin response, they allowed half of the 257 participants to play a violent video game, such as Duke Nukem, for 20 minutes, while the other half played a non-violent video game, such as Pinball. After the participants were pulled from their flashing TV screens, they were subjected to a series of real-life violent videos, while their physiological measurements were being taken again. The results were shocking. They found that the players who experienced the violent video games had, on average, a 15% lower heart rate than those who played a non-violent video game. Also, the ones exposed to the violent video games had a significantly lower perspiration rate during the video, as compared to those that did not partake in the shoot-em-up action. What does this mean? This means people who experience violent video games for a mere 20 minutes habituate or ‘get used to’ all the violence and eventually become physiologically numb to it. Imagine what happens to kids who, on weekly basis, spend 5 hours on violent video games. Ten hours. Twenty Hours! The results of this study prove that if something is not done to sequester violent video games from desensitizing our youth, will there even be such a thing as ‘violence’?
Now, I do not ask from you a “small contribution” of money that you will never see again, or that will keep you awake and night and have you hoping that it got to the people it was intended for. No. I simply ask from you two things: First, to aid in spreading the world of this growing problem and help the government recognize the severity of it. These actions could cause laws to be passed to limit and possibly censor these video games. To complete this you could simply mention this situation to local representatives or write a brief letter toward a congressional council informing them of your concern. Secondly, if you have children or know families with children, spread the word of the possible issues violent video games may be causing to better improve the health of their children. Www.onguardonline.gov is a very useful government website that you may refer parents to, that will provide credible and useful information about video games and children. These actions will aid in improving the wellness of our children and also the safety of our community by providing much more mentally stable members.
As you can see, from the use and distribution of violent video games, it is severely affecting our society in many detrimental ways. For example, if we allow kids to partake in the addictive action produced by video games, we are actually teaching our children to complete unthinkable acts of cruelty in the modern world. This may sound outrageously false, but I encourage you to analyze the bigger picture at stake, and you will find that it is shockingly true. Another very notable consequence of these violent video games is that we are desensitizing our youth with each shiny new game we award them with. If we continue to allow children to participate in the entertainment that violent video games provide, we are not only hurting ourselves, but also everyone around us. Now that you are so well informed of the harm that violent video games produce, go out there and help people with your newly acquired knowledge. Heck, you might as well call yourself a superhero from now on!