video games, grand theft auto, child psychology, and effects

Video Games,  Grand Theft Auto, Child Psychology, and Effects

There have been millions of games created over the last 55 years, and the earliest game was Spacewar!, being a shooting game in which you would go through the galaxy surviving in a small space vessel. Many of these games have been violent, how do they affect children? Thousands of studies have been made on this exact question, and is there an exact answer? Actually, to answer that, it would be no, there is no scientifically proven fact that people are affected negatively by games, though on the contrary, there are manifest facts that show positive effects of games.

 Children of today’s society are used to the interactions of technology and the flagrant doings of their peers at their institution. The Millennial generation does not realise the inconspicuous activities of their off spring, their children know everything they shouldn’t at the youngest of ages, not even acknowledging the fact that what they are saying, or doing is ethical. In school children are exposed to many things, including a variety unbecoming contents.  Because of the many thoughts that children have spread, this leads to us wonder, “Are games really that bad?”

Compare to school, life, even the people we know violent games are hardly comparable. According to studies, people who play violent video games are actually less likely to show a sign of aggression, and violence. Dr. Andy Przybylski, from Oxford University’s Oxford Internet Institute, the lead author, said the fact that the study had not found evidence of a link between violent games and real-life aggression. He added: “There are lots of reasons why a young person might be playing video games so much. “It might be that there is something really fun going on the in game or it might be that there is something going on in the young person’s life.”

Parents today are influenced about games completely wrong. They read articles about the negatives, and that’s what is out there most of the time, since it makes a good story to talk about the negatives. If one parent hears about how bad a game is and how it will make their child do something bad, they will tell their friends that their child shouldn’t play those games since their bad. These people that tell about how games are bad, most likely would have never even played the game itself before evaluating it, they hear things, see things, and write about it. Nothing anyone will see in a game is hardly as bad as what they see in school, and on the news. Logically thinking about violence is the best way to interpret this; “Imagine a game where someone runs with a chain saw and kills people, now think of reality, we have people that do that right? But will the child that plays this game want to go shoot up a store after seeing this? If they are inspired to do that, most likely they wouldn’t be in the right mental state to be even sitting done to play the game.”

When a child playas the game they play it because they enjoy it or they want to experience something they will never do in their life, but a child wouldn’t just decide to just copy something they do in the game. If you watch as child do something violent in a game you cannot expect them to want or do that same thing ever in reality, this is because of the human (homosapians) brain, and very basic common sense. When a child does something in a game they won’t just repeat that same thing in reality since in the real world they are an actual person, and they realise that. In real life there are consequences, and there is initial thought, before a child does something they compute it through their brain, in our own primitive minds it is all about survival and if we think about doing something bad we will realise that “if I do this it will affect my wellbeing.” Therefore we will not just commit a crime on purpose right off the back.

Grand Theft Auto, a game series founded in New York City October 1997, is a collection of games generated by IGN that have been around for several years. The newest edition to their collection, GTA V was brought to the world on October 7 2013, selling $800 million on day one, and by the third day of its release more than 1 billion. The game is played from either a first-person or third-person view and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch between them both during and outside of missions. The story is centered on the heist sequences, and many missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggression of law enforcement response to players who commit crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.

The game in many cases has a bad reputation for children, known for violent, and aggressive content, though it is not actually that bad. Stated by a parent of a 12-year-old “Well this game has a bad reputation but it really doesn't deserve it! You can learn a lot of things from this game such as about stocks and bonds, managing money and also sports as the is a big golf and tennis minigame! Bad places can easily be avoided and the violence is no worse than what is seen on the news and many events are worse in school! It is a really fun game and a mature child should be just fine playing it as long as they are not a psycho and will know that it is a game! “A comment from another parent, “By the time kids are in junior high (Middle School), they already have seen bad content. So, they are already used to seeing some suggestive themes and hearing rough language, there is nothing worse than what we see on the news!”

Grand Theft Auto, as far away from a learning experience it may seem its actually teaching physics such as Newtons first law of inertia; An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force, his second law; The acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object, and his third law;  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object. This game also teaches a child about the stock market, in particular stocks and bonds, and how to spend your money wisely, without the factor of losing actual things in your reality.

In conclusion, those who play are more likely to not have problems such as aggression than those who did not play at all, children at school are affected daily by horrid language and contents, Grand Theft Auto is not as bad as it seems to be, even with benefits, and there is no scientifically proven evidence for children to be mentally affected by violent games.