In the modern world, everybody is surrounded by various technologies that consume children in every way possible. They opt for playing video games and spending their time in the virtual world rather than communicating with their peers in real life. Therefore, it is evident that video games negatively impact teenagers since most of them include violence and aggression. In other words, it considerably influences their behavior and might bring out a hostile attitude.
Without a doubt, video games tend to result in children’s belligerent behavior and serve as an obstacle on the way to self-development and personal growth. The involvement in the virtual world of violence leads to the decline in prosocial behavior, which is also considered to be the capacity to feel compassion and concern for others (Coyne et al., 2018). Another critical point is that tournament in video games is not negatively influential, though children’s loss during the virtual pastime fuels aggressive attitudes (Dowsett & Jackson, 2019). Cooperative competitions in virtual entertainment have the same effect on teenage minds since they tend to increase aggression and hostility as well (Greitemeyer, 2019). Consequently, the impact of violence in video games is indeed unfavorable to teenagers as they start to feel negative emotions that, in turn, influence the teenagers’ relationships, well-being, and even development.
To sum up, children’s involvement in virtual violence and competition is damaging to their behavior on the whole. It leads to increased aggression and hostility in their attitudes, which considerably influences other parts of a child’s life: from personal growth to peer relationships. Furthermore, it takes a substantial amount of both time and effort to reduce the negative impact of video games on children and to gain the prosocial behavior that is crucial to one’s self-development.
References
Coyne, S. M., Warburton, W. A., Essig, L. W., & Stockdale, L. A. (2018). Violent video games, externalizing behavior, and prosocial behavior: A five-year longitudinal study during adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 54(10), 1868–1880.
Dowsett, A., & Jackson, M. (2019). The effect of violence and competition within video games on aggression. Computers in Human Behavior, 99, 22–27.
Greitemeyer, T. (2018). The spreading impact of playing violent video games on aggression. Computers in Human Behavior, 80, 216–219.