Persuasive Essay On Violent Video Games

Kids should not play some video games

Violent video games can be the cause for children's negative behavior; these video games can disrupt a child's cognitive development, their physiological and psychological well-being, and their behavior. There are many children around the world that play violent video games, particularly in the United States. Among children playing violent video games in the United States, the hours playing have increased from four hours a week to thirteen hours a week. Parents and others around the world believe that these types of video games are changing children's behavior.

Violent video games can disrupt a child's cognitive development. Violent video games may not rot child's brain, but violent video games change the way they think. A new study done by Radiological Society of North America has provided results showing how violent video games change the way children think. The study has children play a game for ten hours a week and then stop for a week. Another group of children were asked not to play violent video games for a two-week period.

The children underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging, again after one week, and then the children had another imaging test done at the end of the experiment. The experiment these children went through show that violent video games can change the function of the brain that is associated with the cognitive function and the emotional control. After one week of playing the violent video game the experiment showed less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe during the emotional task and less activation in the anterior cingulate cortex during the counting task. When the children did not play the second week the experiment showed that the changes to the executive area of the brain has diminished. This area of the brain is important, it controls the emotions and aggression behavior.

When children play violent video games it can change how their behavior is in a negative way. These violent video games desensitize the children that are playing them. When children become desensitized, their aggression increases, and their empathy decreases. Many video games have a considerate amount of violence in them. Children who observe violent activity tend to follow in suit when he or she is frustrated. Many children's negative behavior can be blamed on the violent scenes in violent video games. When children play an extended amount of violent video games, the become socially isolated.

The violent video games effect the children's physiological and psychological well-being. When children become socially isolated, it means that they do not spend enough time interacting with other member of their lives. Playing violent video games can lead to an increase of aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal, including increased heart rate, and aggressive behavior. The violent video games also decrease in helping behavior and feelings of empathy for others.

The violent video games have changed my nephew's behavior toward others in a negative way. When he gets frustrated he shows a lot of aggression toward people and objects. I have seen my nephew fly of the handle over the simplest task. When he is told to do his chores before he plays his video games he starts slamming objects around and punching things. Violent video games have changed the way he speaks to adults. He will swear at them and he has threatened them as well. The studies that have been done one children to see how violent video games change the behavior of children have proven that young children should not be playing these video games. Seeing first hand how these types of video games changed my nephew in a negative way is proof enough that parents need to be more involved in the type of games their children are playing and follow the ratings on the games. The gaming companies have established rating on the games to show that these violent video games are not meant for young children. It says right on the back of the cases what age group should be playing these games as well as what content is in the video games. Let's be more aware of how these violent video games affect children and start monitoring the games they play.

References:

Kühn, Simone, et al. "Does Playing Violent Video Games Cause Aggression? A Longitudinal Intervention Study." Nature News, Nature Publishing Group.

Peck, Peggy. "Violent Video Games Affect Teenage Brain." WebMD.

Sifferlin, Alexandra. "Violent Video Games Are Linked to Aggression, Study Says." Time.

Sniderman, Zachary. "Violent Video Games Disrupt Emotion and Cognition in Young Men." Mashable.

Toppo, Greg. "Do Video Games Inspire Violent Behavior?" Scientific American.

"Violent Video Games and Aggression." National Center for Health Research.

"What's The Psychological Effect of Violent Video Games on Children?"

"Yes, Violent Video Games Do Cause Aggression." Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers.

Julie, your essay tends to be redundant when it comes to the use of the term "violent video games". You need to use a thesaurus find ways of varying the term using various synonym words.

Your thesis statement does not lay out a solid foundation that kids should not be allowed to play certain violent video games. It will be better for your argument if you can specify certain game titles that directly relate to the experiment that was conducted on the players. That way, you can prove that the experiment had actual data considerations After all, you do have sources listed in your bibliography page. One of those or all of those sources should have mentioned at least one video game right?

Speaking of your bibliography, you may want to double check the format for your paper and create in-text citations and paraphrases with appropriate sources referenced in the paragraphs. Your essay loses authority and validity when you mentioned information that obviously comes from other sources but lacks a citation as a form of thank you to the source. That is an academic requirement for research papers so your paragraphs should reflect the sources within the quoted section. You may also wish to cite actual figures in relation to the number of children involved in the study, the methodology used, and the percentage of results in order to help convince the reader that your argument is correct. Use it to persuade the reader to your side.

As a persuasive essay, this could be made stronger if you consider the arguments that say video games do not create a violent mindset in children. A persuasive essay needs to consider both sides of the discussion, with a focus on weakening the opposing argument in order to prove that your stance is the correct one. I don't really see a balanced argument here. It is lopsided in favor of your point of view which is not the way this essay should be written.

Thank you for your feedback. I was thinking my essay was missing something just could not figure out what I needed to change in my essay. Thank you for your help.