Whenever I have free time or I’m done with my homework, I play some innocent video games to to relax and entertain myself, but games vary. Whether they are harmless like Candy Crush or Minecraft, or violent gaming like COD (Call Of Duty) or Mortal Combat. Brutal games like these impact our imagination in the wrong ways.  Violent video games inspire bad and aggressive behaviour in today’s teens and children.

Video games are and will be very popular for the next couple of years. A study written in Time Health explained this to the readers: “Approximately 90% of children in the U.S play video games, and more than 90% of those games involve mature content that often includes violence” (Mullin). Therefore, violence in kid’s games has quite a few reasons why it influences us so much. The American Academy of Pediatrics stated, “Kids should not use human or other living targets or award points for killing, because this teaches children to associate pleasure and success with their ability to cause pain and suffering to others” (Scutti). The connection between violent media and aggression has also created a few cases when teenagers and/or kids have been influenced into real crimes such as the ones mentioned below.

Firstly, one example of a case, is the 18 year old gunman, whose name is unknown, who decided to kill multiple people in Germany. According to reports in CNN, “The 18-year old gunman who killed nine people in Munich, Germany, on Friday was a fan of first-person shooter video games” (Scutti). Furthermore, the infamous Blue Whale mobile game, was reported of influencing 130 kids in Russia to cut themselves or jump from high distances resulting to their death (Mullin). Soon enough, peer pressure begun to develop, and teenagers were aggressively forced to try the challenge, resulting into more deaths. “Teenagers generally take these risks because they are vulnerable and prone to seek validation. Also, it makes them feel like they are a part of something that is bigger than them” (Parikh). Last but not least, Jerad Block, a researcher and psychiatrist in Portland stated that, “Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on their shooting rampage at Columbine High School after their parents took away their video game privileges.”(Nizza). These examples all are very extreme cases, however but I too have had unpleasant experiences with brutal video games, and the only reason why I played them is to make me feel “cool” and “powerful.”

Personally, when I was younger, these specific video games were a rather big part of my childhood. Losing to another player online always seemed to trigger a lot of rage and disappointment to me, which was not particularly acceptable for my age at the time. Not only that, but peers around me would feel successful and proud for killing other people on multiplayer. In conclusion, games that have violence and that include “+18” disclaimers that everyone seems to ignore, should be banned from children under the age of 12 and slowly become more limited to teenagers all around the world, in the view of the fact that it impacts most of today’s youth into having more of a belligerent way of acting.

Works Cited

Mullin, Gemma, Thesun. "What Is The Blue Whale Suicide Challenge, How Many Deaths Has    The Game Been Linked To And Is It In The UK?." N.p., 2017. Web. 18 Oct. 2017.

Nizza, Mike. "Tying Columbine To Video Games." The Lede. N.p., 2007. Web. 18 Oct. 2017.

Susan Scutti, CNN. "Do Video Games Lead To Violence?." CNN. N.p., 2016. Web. 18 Oct. 2017.

Park, Alice, TIme.“Violent Video Games: They May Make Kids Think In More Aggressive Ways."   N.p., 2014. Web. 18 Oct. 2017.

u-17, fifa, and New Delhi IANS. "Blue Whale Challenge: Why Teenagers Are Vulnerable To The Game And What You Can Do About It." N.p., 2017. Web. 19 Oct.    2017.