“The teenagers playing the games were asked to identify their favorite among five categories of video games. The two most preferred categories of games were games that involved fantasy or violence, preferred by almost 32% of subjects; and sports games, some of which contained violent sub-themes, which were preferred by more than 29%. Nearly 20% of the students said they had a preference for games with a general entertainment theme, while another 17% favored games that involved human violence. Fewer than 2% of the adolescents preferred games with educational content. The study found that approximately 36% of male students played video games at home for 1 to 2 hours per week; 29% played 3 to 6 hours; and 12 percent did not play at all. Among female students who played video games at home, approximately 42% played 1 to 2 hours and 15% played 3 to 6 hours per week. Nearly 37% of females did not play any video games.”
In gaming there are 10 different categories you can chose from, the first of the 10 categories is action, most of these games are shooting or they are running around an in game map fighting, the next is driving, these would be just your average racing game or even racing but battering the other cars to win the race, this also goes into the category of racing but without the battering of the other cars. This next category is fighting; this usually has wrestling games or a martial arts fight. The fourth category is flight these games are only you as a pilot in a battle attacking other planes or a ground force. The next type is platform, these category let you play the films you see in the cinema. This next category is a little unusual, its puzzle, this mainly has games that have a series of questions and you have to be the first to select the correct answer. The eighth category is called role playing, what this is, is that you’re a specific person in the game, thorough the entire game. The next game category is called sport; this will consist of almost any sport that you can think of. The last category that there is called strategy, this is a type of game where you have to really think about what you are going to do in the game to survive, these games are mostly shooting.
There are also different symbols to indicate what is on a game these symbols are called violence, bad language, fear, sex, drugs, discrimination and gamboling.
The Nintendo Company, in rating its games, follows standards modeled on the system used by the Motion Picture Association of America. A problem shared by those who rate violence in television and video games is that the definition of violence is necessarily individual.
Effects of Violence in Video Games show that their has been a steady increase in the number of video games with violent themes. Games rated as extremely violent increased from 53% to 82% in about 3 years. A survey had explained “that manufacturers were titling their games with increasingly violent titles. Another survey found out that 40 of the 47 top-rated Nintendo video games had violence as a theme. An early study on the effects of video games on children found that playing video games had more positive effects on children than watching television. A conference sponsored by Atari at Harvard University in 1983 presented preliminary data which failed to identify ill effects.
Personally, however, I have begun to find connections between children playing violent video games that later in time (and this can start from an early 2 weeks, or in some cases only a couple of days), an aggressive behavior that will start to occur in the child’s life. While video game playing has not been shown as a direct cause of severe mental problems, research suggests that there is a short-term relationship between playing violent games and increased aggressive behavior in younger children, the main reason that young children bring up a violent behavior is because that at such a young age and still learning good from bad and right from wrong, this can lead them into thinking that all the violent games that they have been playing are infact the right way to behave.
Fortunately games that are being brought out into the world all have age restrictions these restrictions are a little like a film, but instead of watching a film you are playing a game. These age restrictions go from the youngest age which is 3+ to the oldest age restriction which is 18+.
Some educational professionals, while allowing that video games permit children to engage in a somewhat creative dialogue, keep that this engagement is highly constrained compared to other activities, such as creative writing. Another problem seen by critics of video games is that the games stress a rebellious action rather than cooperation. A common game scenario is that of an anonymous character performing an aggressive act against an anonymous enemy. The world of video games has little sense of community and few team players. Also, most video games do not allow play by more than one player at a time. The social content of video games may influence children's attitudes toward gender roles. In the Nintendo games, women are usually cast as persons who are acted upon rather than as demands of action. Television program producers and video game manufacturers may produce violent shows and games for this audience. This demand for violence may not arise because of a natural male desire to witness violence, but because males are looking for strong role models, which they find in these shows and games.
In my conclusion however I believe that gaming is not a bad thing, but when you let a young child that still has to grow up, and learn responsibility play a game that has a lot of violence this may be the cause of some peoples bad attitude to the world, and I believe this is also the reason that age restrictions were put on games. Thank you for listening and I will answer any questions you have.
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