Video Games - Corrupting a Generation

We live in a world of constantly advancing technology combined with a desperate economic situation. Parents that used to stay home to watch the kids are now out working, and doing their best to provide a comfortable life for their family. Whether it’s a single parent household or a situation where both parents have to work, one thing remains the same; children are often left unsupervised. Are parents really aware of what their children are doing, or seeing while they are gone? Do parents really know the content of the video games their kids are playing, or better yet The Effects of Violent Video Games on children? Most children have unlimited access to internet, television, and video games, all of which are riddled with sexuality, violence, racism, and immoral behavior. These push of a button babysitters are corrupting today’s youth, and damaging the future moral structures of society. While T.V. and the internet provide children with access to plenty of adult content, nothing compares to the video games being played, and their effect on our youth.

When I was a kid, shooting a duck on the T.V. with a plastic gun in “Duck Hunt”, or jumping down a tube in “Mario” was the "cool" thing to have at your house. If you were lucky enough to scrounge up a few dollars and get to the Mall or Fun-N-Games, maybe a little "Pac-Man" or as I got into my teens the rediculous trend of "Dance Dance Revolution!" which for the record, I NEVER took part in. The advances in technology since those days have certainly been astounding, but it has not come without a price. The biggest trend in games for quite some time now is violence, and not just subtle violence. Most of the Top games of 2011 were filled with grotesque over the top violence, some of which may sound familiar: “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3”, “Grand Theft Auto”, and “Dead Island” just to name a few. In just the games listed above a kid can do anything from: have sex with a prostitute(after which he can murder the prostitute to get his money back), be-head a zombie with a pipe, murder people by the hundreds, kill police officers, sell drugs, etc. Younger children are incapable of differentiating between what is video game and what is reality. A young impressionable kid who spends his days spraying machine guns at humans targets on the T.V. and carrying out incredibly graphic acts is certainly having difficulty drawing the line between reality and virtual reality.   This isn’t a new issue by any means, but with constant advances in technology, and the competition between the companies that manufacture these games they are bound to only get worse. Even though these games are designed for adults, parents have seem to have very little issue in purchasing a game for their child if it means a few hours of silence. Parents need to become more interactive and do more to Educate Themselves about the violence in their kids video games, the effects the violence could have, and what they can do to prevent these types of games from effecting their children.