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Olivia Mauk
Ms. Robillard
LA 8 Hour 7
12 February 2015
Negative Effects of Video Games
A teenagers sitting in a basement alone. Hes concentrated, determined to finish his game
of COD despite the late hour of the night. Because to him, its real. He is running through the
streets of the war blasted country. He is killing those people. He is the character. Scenes like this
have become frequent in homes all around the world. The video game industry, once filled with
lighthearted games like Pac-Man and Mario Bros has gradually added violence and cruelty into
their games creating games like COD and GTA where murder and cruelty is no big deal or just
apart of the game. Games like these are a towering distraction to students, create false scenes and
negatively influence kids and teens. Simulated video games are perilous to teens.
On the other side, as video game sales have gone up in the last century, youth violence
has gone down. Although this is true, it doesnt eliminate the presence of violence that can be
created from video games. This also doesnt consider other negative side effects that can occur
from video games such as, social isolation, obesity and bad concentration ("Raise Smart Kid").
These reasons make this argument much less relevant to the topic of violent video games.
Video games become a massive distraction from school and other activities. When kids
get caught up in their games they tend to forget about their other plans for homework or
activities. A NBC article goes into specifics on this topic quoting from Robert Weis. "For
children without games, scores go up over time," Weis said. "For boys with games, scores remain
relatively stable. Then the article goes on explaining Weiss other findings, You don't see the

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typical development in reading and writing. "But the new gamers had lower reading and writing
scores after four months, and their teachers reported more learning problems, the study found.
The biggest gap was in writing (Geranios). This data may be shocking, but unfortunately its
true. This proves that video games really can affect your performance in school. Video games are
effecting teen school work.
Simulational video games create an artificial reality for gamers. For instance, an extreme
example of this happened in May 2014 when two 12 year old girls took their best friend into the
woods, pinned her down and stabbed her 19 times before fleeing the scene and leaving her there
to die. When they were asked why they attempted to kill her the girls responded they responded
that they had done it for Slenderman. Slenderman is a fictional online character who stalks
children, they had become obsessed with over the months prior to the attempted murder.
Situations like this one are also closely related to violent video game scenarios. This character
had been developed by hundreds of thousands of people, each adding a new story about him
which in turn made Slenderman seem so real to these girls (Jones). Obviously, this wont happen
to all teens when they play video games. Another thing that fuels the fire is the new graphics and
sound quality that is put into video games. Looking at the screen makes you feel like youre
actually there! An addiction can even be developed when your gaming habits become too
frequent. These games can tamper with young minds, making them seem like reality.
Violent videos are a bad influence on teens. In a survey, about 60% of boys who have hit
or beat someone up are gamers. In the same survey they also found that 60% of the boys who got
into trouble with the principal were gamers ("22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth
Violence "). Its no coincidence that these pieces of data go together. The negative themes seen
in video games are effecting teens more than we know. In Call Of Duty, a very popular video

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game, your success throughout the game is judged on how many people you can kill. Games like
these remove sensitivity and morality from killing. Suddenly its no big deal to kill five unarmed
men because, its just a game". But, the question is, is it right to make something so serious into
a game? The topics that are used in violent video games are a influencing teens in a negative
way.
In whole, these violent games arent what any teen needs in their life. Theyre distracting,
addictive, they display the world unrealistically, and promote brutality. Besides that, teens should
be putting their energy into healthier activities like sports, or the arts. Violent video games are
perilous for teens and need to be limited.

Works Cited
Do Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto V' Cause Real-World Violence?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine,
18 Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

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Geranios, Nicholas K. "Study: Video Games Can Hurt Schoolwork."Msnbc.com. Nbcnews.com,
16 Mar. 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.
Jones, Abigail. "The Girls Who Tried to Kill for Slender Man." Newsweek. Newsweek LLC, 13
Aug. 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
"Raise Smart Kid." Raise Smart Kid. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
"22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth Violence." ProConorg Headlines. ProCon, n.d.
Web. 11 Feb. 2015.