How Violent Video Games Really Affect Kids

Greg Toppo’s article -- How Violent Video Games Really Affect Kids -- in the July/August 2015 issue (p. 40), focuses on a question that has been debated for decades. Toppo closes the article with a statement by media scholar Henry Jenkins that is well worth your consideration.

They concluded that any negative behavioral effects playing violent games might have are more than offset because violent people are drawn to such games, and the more they play, the less time they have for crime.

Even if violent video games are not turning people into killers, we might still wonder if they are harming our kids in subtler ways. As psychologist Douglas Α. Gentile of Iowa State University puts it,     whatever we practice repeatedly affects brain. If we practice aggressive ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, then we will get better at those.” In a 2008 survey on the gaming habits of about 2,500 young people, Gentile and his father, psychologist J. Ronald Gentile, found that children and adolescents who played more violent games were likelier to report “aggressive cognitions and behaviors.” They concluded that violent video games “appear to be exemplary teachers of aggression.”

The greatest worry is the impact on children who are already at risk.

“Media is most powerful in our lives when it reinforces our existing values.”

(media scholar Henry Jenkins)

Please let us know if you think this is a valuable and important message. If you do, please go to the TOV Center Facebook Page and “Like It” -- click here. Share this with others too!

Jim Myers