Are Video Games Good for Kids? Essay

Are video games bad for kids? Back in time in mid 90’s the best source of entertainment for kids was the television that have a great variety of cartoons for the kids to have good entertainment and learn good things. But now they have video games that right now are the top selling industry in the world according to Barbara Ortutay of MSNBC online â€Å"the selling of video games on July of this year went to $1. 19 billion with a 17 percent more than last year. But the only concern for the society is that kids are getting to much access to violent games and that makes the video games bad for them. As said by David Walsh, Ph. D. National Institute on Media and the Family he said in this report that â€Å"Children are more likely to imitate the actions of a character with whom they identify. In violent video games the player is often required to take the point of view of the shooter or perpetrator. Video games by their very nature require active participation rather than passive observation. Repetition increases learning. Video games involve a great deal of repetition. If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioral rehearsal for violent activity. † He also said that â€Å"Exposure to violent games increases physiological arousal, increases aggressive thoughts, increases aggressive emotions and increases aggressive actions. † Video games should not be at the reach of any kid because more all less they all involve violence like for example Mario games that all of them involve killing enemies for success, or crash bandicoot that have the same type of game experience as Mario. Naturally there are always people that do not think the same way like ABC news. com that make a report of social critic Steven Johnson, author of the controversial new book, â€Å"Everything Bad Is Good for You. â€Å"he argues that video games — violent or not — are making children smarter. â€Å"You have to manage multiple objectives at the same time,† he said. â€Å"You have to manage all these different resources, and you have to make decisions every second of the game. † Video games typically require the player to complete a number of specific tasks to win. â€Å"Well we have to get the Jeep, we have to ride up a hill, kill the snipers, drive past the mountainside, go into another giant palace and activate the remote,† said one 10-year-old interviewed by ABC News while playing the Halo 2 video game, designed for the Microsoft Xbox gaming system. But children should not be exposed to that type of learning because they are going to be more aggressive and â€Å"less positive people toward life† according to David Walsh. ABC also site from Johnson that â€Å"Children who play such video games exhibit what experts call â€Å"fluid intelligence,† or problem solving. † â€Å"They have to discover the rules of the game and how to think strategically,† said James Paul Gee, a University of Wisconsin-Madison curriculum and instruction professor. â€Å"Like any problem solving that is good for your head, it makes you smarter. † â€Å"Intelligence test scores in the United States are rising faster than ever, experts say. One possible reason: Studies show video games make people more perceptive, training their brains to analyze things faster. † But the truth based on studies is that â€Å"Studies measuring cognitive responses to playing violent video games have shown that violent games increase aggressive thoughts. These findings have been found for males and females, children and adults, and in experimental and correlational studies. † Said David Walsh on his report. In conclusion violent video games should be restricted for kids in all the way possible because they will develop more aggressive actions, less caring and aggressive emotions in comparison with regular games that also have that responses and that also should be avoided for the raising of a kid. People can say that the help to problem solving and to fast response to other thing but the truth is that the make more damage than a helping. Works Cited Walsh, David. â€Å"Video Game Violence and Public Policy† culturalpolicy. edu. 2001. September 30, 2008. http://culturalpolicy. uchicago. edu/conf2001/papers/walsh. html. Ortutay, Barbara. â€Å"July video game sales jump 28 percent† MSNBC. com. August 14, 2008. September 30, 2008. http://www. msnbc. msn. com/id/26208654/ Argumentative essay Angel Bello 802-08-0724 October 1,2008.