Video Games: Their Negative Influence on Children's

As a video game and computer game lover, the thought that negative effects ever being present in these enjoyable past time devices never crossed my mind. Over this past summer I was able to spend countless hours improving my skills on different games. I of course made multiple visits to video game stores such as Game Stop and Game Crazy. As I entered one these stores to purchase a new game, I noticed two boys, probably about eight or nine years of age, were playing one of the latest war games on a new video game console known as the Xbox 360. As I walked over to the shelves to search for the game that I had gone there to buy I heard a loud, “That’s right bitch, I got your ass!” I slowly turned to notice that it was one of the boys who were playing the Xbox that had just said this. What I had just heard is not something uncommon to hear boys say while playing certain games, but it made me think: what compels such young boys to act and say things this way? My purpose in this paper is to persuade parents of young boys that the video game culture might be harmful to their psychological development.

First of all, video games today are being made so that the involvement of the player is constantly being improved. The idea is that when you play the character on the screen they want you feel as if you really are the character. Game producers are always trying to one up each other by making new ways to make games feel realistic. What’s unfortunate about this is that the majority of these games are extremely violent, gory, and sexually graphic. For example, consider the gaming company Rockstar. They are known for creating extremely controversial games. They are the creators of two popular games known as Grand Theft Auto and Bully. In Grand Theft Auto you play as a gang member in a suburban city who has the freedom to commit almost any kind of crime and is able to get away with it by killing those who get in your way. In the game Bully you play a young boy attending a private high school who bullies not only other students but teachers as well. These kinds of games all revolve around one notion, and that is using physical force to get what you want. This is what Cassell and Jenkins (1998) call “playing like a male.”

In their book, From Barbie to Mortal Combat (1998), it explains how nine out of ten games present a male as the main character. Not only do these games have a male as the leading character, but the male is also grotesquely illustrated as a hyper masculine violent being. These males show no regret, grief, or sorrow toward their actions and basically take the life other characters in the game without expressing any emotion. Game producers come up with particular strategies to keep the gamer involved. Their most effective strategy is the way that they reward the gamer. The more people you kill the more points you get. At the end of every level they show a tally of how many kills you achieved and keep track of your points. As the game progresses these points allow you unlock more things in the game. For example, more weapons are provided for the character. At the beginning of the game the character is given low level weapons, such as a pistol or knife, but as the game continues the character gains larger and higher tech weapons, such a flame thrower or grenade launcher. And attaining these weapons lets the character kill more opponents quicker and allows the gamer to see more violently graphic material, such as severed limbs or exploding heads. According to Norris (2004), this aggression demonstrates extreme male behavior that contributes to gender stereotyping.

Not only do we see extreme male stereotypes in video games, we also see extreme female stereotyping. In a game where the male is the main character females usually portrayed as helpless and needy and in most cases always need to be rescued. They are considered the damsels in distress. People may argue to an extent that there are also games that have females as the main characters too, such as the game Lara Croft, but this and other games define femininity in a very different way. Females who play larger roles in video games are portrayed extremely sexual. Since most gaming companies are comprised of mostly or all men, they portray the female characters as they would in a male’s fantasy. For example, Lara Croft’s body is considered grossly unnatural. She does not have the same body proportions that a woman has. Her