Agree and Act

Have you ever been influenced by a visual image? How did you react to it? When children under the age of eighteen are exposed to violence in images and on TV there is either a positive or a negative impact? There have been many of controversies of whether visual media has made an impact on children’s behavior or not. Children who are continuously exposed to violent things will eventually catch on and start doing the violent things that they are exposed to. Children don’t realize that it happens because they see violence in images, computers, video games , and print wherever they go. One problem that the world is facing when it comes to children is the age restriction on violent video games. If there is a age restriction on violent video games , then how are kids under the age of eighteen getting there hands on them?

Video games are one of factors that cause negative effects on children. There are multiple games that children under the age of eighteen are prohibited from purchasing by themselves because of the excessive violence that the video games contain. Even though children are not able to buy these violent games they always find a way to get their hands on them anyways. The people that create and sell these video games know for a fact that violent video games have a big impact on children. If they didn’t know that there was an impact they wouldn’t have a rule that you had to be at least eighteen or over to purchase violent video games.

There are many reasons on why the law of having age restrictions on violent video games is so valuable. There have been multiple studies to find out if the violence in media of the world is really affecting the youth. According to the book Stop Teaching Our kids to kill by Dave Grossman, the author notes that the incident that happened on December 1st of 1997 is a great example of the violence affecting children. This incident took place in West Paducah, Kentucky. In this incident a 14 year old boy named Michael Carneal shot and took three lives away and wounded three other students at the Heath High School. It was established that before the incident happened Michael Carneal logged into porn sites and played violent computer and video games. The most shocking part of this whole story is that besides the 14 year old playing violent video and computer games he also watched a movie named The Basketball Diaries.
The Basketball Diaries is an extremely violent movie. In that movie there is a scene of a student killing classmates with a shotgun. During Carneal's trial they found him guilty with second degree murder and he was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. His family hired a psychiatrist to spend time with Michael and the psychiatrist filed a report stating that Michael was influenced to do such horrible things because of the exposure of violence through the movie, and video and computer games.

The violence in video games and movies is the most excessive research forms of the media. Studies have shown that using all designs of media have all the same conclusion, the exposure to video/computer games and movie violence escalates aggression among children. According to The Future of Children Association there was an experiment where two groups of six year old Finnish kids watched a violent movie and the other group watched non -violent movie. After both groups watched the movie, raters came in and observed the children. Children who had watched the violent movie have been reported to have physical assault and fierce aggression. The other group of kids that watched the non- violent movie seemed to be fine and played with one another safely. The raters of this experiment have reported that exposure to violence can increase aggressive thinking, emotions, and violent behavior.

Children who are exposed to violence in multiple ways are more likely to become violent themselves as they grow up. Exposure of violence causes apathetic behavior, lack of compassion, and nightmares. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) , have noted that continuous exposure to aggressive images and videos will create an aggressive attitude. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have stated that they have found relations between exposure to violent medias and impulsive behavior may be at risk adolescents. At risk adolescent meaning that they have a risk of having a ugly and aggressive attitude while growing up if they keep being exposed to such violence whether it be on TV, magazines, paintings, or images.

Even though there is a lot of evidence of the violence in media creating violent children.
I have seen evidence right in front of my open eyes. As I was growing up my cousins surrounded me; we all grew up together. We would go over each other's house and play together. My brother and my cousin Damian would always play video games together. The video games that they would play would be very graphic and violent. My mother separated both Damian and my brother when she found out what games they were playing. My brother stopped playing the games and Damian continued. As Damian grew up he was extremely violent, he would always get in trouble in school for fighting and threatening the other kids. When he got to high school it became worse, my aunt found knives and guns in his room.
Currently Damian is in jail. This a good example of how the violence in media affect children. If Damian was never exposed to violent video games as a minor he wouldn't be in jail and my brother and Damian would of still been the best of friends. My mother was right for separating them because my brother would of been in the same place.
Children under the age of eighteen learn from what they see. Children play violent video games and and think that it is ok to do anything they want that they see in these games. Sometimes I blame some parents, because they actually buy these violent games knowing that their child is only ten and not eighteen. Age restrictions on violent video games is a good idea and not just another example of government intrusion. One thing that we can do is when we become parents we should keep violent media away from our children. Meaning we shouldn’t let them borrow games from their friends that contain violence in them. We are the parents we shouldn’t let the violence in the world raise our children.