Does Violence in Video Games Affect Children's Behavior?

Research Project Outcome Essay

Introduction

Ever since some of the first violent video games were released it has been said that they cause violent behaviour in the people that play them. I have been interested in why this is, because I personally play a lot of games, and in Australia nearly every violent game gets censored. This differs in other countries, where more violent graphics and scenes are allowed. I have wanted to know if this is censoring is necessary in Australia, and if violent games actually cause violent behaviour in people. The question that my research project was based on is “Does violence in video games effect children’s behaviour?”

The main key findings that were gathered through the research include:

- A list of positives and negatives of video games on children health

- Statistics stating it would be impossible for violent games to be a cause of violence

- The main causes for children to show signs of violent behaviour

- The whole topic of violent video games is surrounded by a lot of prejudice thoughts

Positives and negatives

Research found that video games have many positive and few negative effects on children’s health. This didn’t really suggest that games were having any metal negatives effects on children, but it had been stated that there were physical negative effects on children. Most sources suggested that games were having many positive effects of child health. These positive benefits include:

- Improved reflexes, this includes different things like faster reaction time and better hand eye co-ordination.

- Improved cognitive skills, this includes better attention skills, logic and reasoning skills, processing skills, memory, and visual processing skills.

- Speculation that games in general he...

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Elise, A. (2014). UK Study Find That Video Games Have No Effect on Children's Behavior. [online] International Business Times. Available at: http://www.ibtimes.com/video-games-have-no-effect-childrens-behavior-new-study-finds-1482630 [Accessed 20 May. 2014].

Psychologytoday.com, (2014). Video Gaming Can Increase Brain Size and Connectivity. [online] Available at: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201310/video-gaming-can-increase-brain-size-and-connectivity [Accessed 20 May.2014].

Everett, Liam, Violence in video games (2014). [Online] Available at: http:// www.surveymonkey.com/s/G76T8RF [Accessed 20 May 2014].