Are Video Games Good for Kids?

Are video games bad for kids? Back in time in mid 90’s the best source of entertainment for kids was the television that have a great variety of cartoons for the kids to have good entertainment and learn good things. But now they have video games that right now are the top selling industry in the world according to Barbara Ortutay of MSNBC online “the selling of video games on July of this year went to $1.19 billion with a 17 percent more than last year. But the only concern for the society is that kids are getting to much access to violent games and that makes the video games bad for them. As said by David Walsh, Ph.D.National Institute on Media and the Family he said in this report that “Children are more likely to imitate the actions of a character with whom they identify. In violent video games the player is often required to take the point of view of the shooter or perpetrator. Video games by their very nature require active participation rather than passive observation. Repetition increases learning. Video games involve a great deal of repetition. If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioral rehearsal for violent activity.” He also said that “Exposure to violent games increases physiological arousal, increases aggressive thoughts, increases aggressive emotions and increases aggressive actions.” Video games should not be at the reach of any kid because more all less they all involve violence like for example Mario games that all of them involve killing enemies for success, or crash bandicoot that have the same type of game experience as Mario. Naturally there are always people that do not think the same way like ABC news.com that make a report of social critic Steven Johnson, author of the controversial new book, "Everything Bad Is Good for You."he argues that video games -- violent or not -- are making children smarter. "You have to manage multiple objectives at the same time," he said. "You have to manage all these different resources, and you

Cited: Walsh, David. “Video Game Violence and Public Policy” culturalpolicy.edu. 2001. September 30, 2008. http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/walsh.html. Ortutay, Barbara. “July video game sales jump 28 percent” MSNBC.com. August 14, 2008. September 30, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26208654/ Argumentative essay Angel Bello 802-08-0724 October 1,2008