A Critical Analysis of the Impact of Video Games on Child Development

This essay, written by Austin Melka for English 102, delves into the complex effects of video games on children. The author explores both the potential negative consequences, such as aggression and the normalization of violence through mechanisms like minimization, and the potential positive impacts, including the development of socioemotional skills like teamwork and leadership. The essay references studies by Heather Foster, Nicholas L. Carnagey, and Nathan Smith, examining how violent content, marketing strategies, and the design of video games influence children's behavior and development. Melka also incorporates personal anecdotes about his cousins to illustrate the diverse ways video games can affect individuals, highlighting how some games can foster confidence and provide an outlet for challenges like Tourette's syndrome or social anxiety, while other games can negatively influence children's behavior. Ultimately, the essay argues that the impact of video games is multifaceted and depends on the individual child, the specific games played, and the context in which they are played.

1
Austin Melka
Molly Ubbesen
English 102
Assignment 12
9 July 2018
Most people who grew up gaming knows there’s nothing better than ripping off the
plastic and smelling that new game smell followed by the sound of the console starting up. Hours
upon hours spent laughing and having fun with friends to either beat that impossible boss or face
off with one another for those all-important bragging rights. It’s hard for me to do but once I set
nostalgia for wasted Saturday mornings filled with zombie killing aside, the majority of parents
have determined that violent video games have a negative impact on their children, having done
little to no research. However, because of how popular these violent video games have become,
most parents see that other kids are playing and give in. we take the time and precaution to learn
about the impacts of most of the things our children do. There are side effects to almost anything
and when it comes to kids we should always take extra caution. We put restrictions for pitchers
in little league having pitch counts and restrictions on how often they can pitch, we now
understand the dangers that can come from repeated head trauma in football and we now take
precautions to limit the amount of concussions as well as diagnosing them. we take the time to
educate ourselves about our childrens wellbeing for so many things but why do we just shrug our
shoulders and say “what’s the worst that could happen” when it comes to video games.
I want to explain a little more why this topic means so much to me by explaining the
relationship between myself, video games, and my two younger cousins. We’ve spent a lot of
time together over the years hanging out playing video games or basketball. I’ve watched them

2
grow into young men I want to share how I’ve personally seen video games impact them.
experience I have been so lucky to have.
Despite video games having the stigma of being a negative influence on children, some
video games have the potential to positively impact children. My fourteen year old cousin, Chad,
was diagnosed with Tourettes. His love for violent video games started at a young age and has
only grown since then. However, Chad also enjoyed playing various sports and staying active.
One could easily see through his enthusiasm, playing video games was how he preferred to
spend his free time. Chad has struggled with anxiety in the past, but when he turns on the console
and puts on his headset, he has a completely different persona. Over the last year he has made
giant strides with his confidence and I believe this can be attributed to playing video games. This
was most noticeable when he started playing a game called Fortnite. Fortnite is a game where
one starts with a squad of four against ninety-six other players. Watching him play this game, I
have had the pleasure of seeing him exhibit signs of leadership and confidence I’d never seen in
him before.
There are some people who use video games as a form of an escape. My eighteen year old
cousin views video games as an escape for the bullying he faces in life. He doesn’t like violent
video games, rather he enjoys games in which he can create something. For instance, Minecraft
is a game where you can build and create an entire world just the way you want it. My cousin
does not normally enjoy gaming with other people, yet he enjoys playing with me. Because of
this I have been able to see him build up his confidence using video games as a safe place. I
believe the creativity these video games gave him, influenced him to begin photography. It was
the small amount of confidence gained from gaming that helped him get out of his comfort zone.

3
Like my cousins, there are many instances in which video games can positively impact children
and give them the necessary socioemotional skills to assist them in everyday life.
There are many people who believe that because of the graphic violence in video games,
children can be negatively influenced and show aggression in their own behavior. Heather
Foster, graduate of Northern Arizona University, studied and wrote, “How Video Games
Normalize Violence” published by ProQuest Publishing in 2016. In this study, Foster takes
gaming into her own hands by playing these violent games herself. This gives Foster a different
perspective as opposed to other sources because she was the only one to do so. While Foster was
playing these games, she noticed a theme in one of the more morbid games. She noticed There
was a minimization about death saying - “Minimization closely relates to humor as it allows the
video game to downplay the amount of killing occurring. This occurs in Borderlands: Pre-Sequel
(2014) most often as the game uses different types of humor (comical, dark, and satirical) to
minimize the harm occurring” (Foster 71). Minimization is the downplaying the significance of
an event or emotion—is a common strategy in dealing with feelings of guilt (foster 37). The
minimization of death and killing has eliminated the significant emotional impact that happen to
a person in such instances. This can encourage online bullying surrounding the topic of death.
My friends and I have received a message from a stranger saying “KYS” (kill yourself). Video
games are attempting to norm this kind of language and associate humor with it. Because of this,
it becomes difficult for individuals to separate this fantasy world with their reality. Some may
find themselves casually speaking this vulgar normed language, appropriate in the gaming world,
in their everyday lives. This can ultimately hurt existing or preexisting relationships they may
have.

4
Aside from minimization, Foster also found something interesting when it came to
aggression related to video games. Foster found that the less experienced they are with the game
the more frustrated they become and faster. Children are quick to become frustrated and give up
when they recognize that they are not successful at something. This becomes more common
when a child who plays a lot and is more experienced with the game won’t become frustrated
with the game because they are not good at it. Foster believes that there has not been enough
research on the effects of video games. There has been plenty of study about violence and media,
however video game research is a new field it there is still much more to learn.
There is also evidence proving that the violence in video games was not intended for
children, rather adults instead. Nicholas L. Carnagey wrote a dissertation, “Is it Competitiveness
or Violent Content? The Effects of Violent Sports Video Games on Aggression” published by
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Like Foster, Carnagey was looking to find out
specifically how video games can negatively impact children. Carnagey’s focus was to see how
everything in the video game industry revolved around violence made for adults but played by
children. “Not only is violence a dominant theme in current video games, but video game
companies are also marketing those violent games towards youth” (Carnagey 3). According to
Carnegey, nearly 85% of video games contained some form of violence. He argues that young
people are playing games that they are not ready for. It’s so easy for a child to obtain a game
they aren’t ready for because of how popular games are. It can be difficult to tell your child no
when every other child is already playing it. Not every child develops the same so when one
child is ready for a violent game another might not be able differentiate the violent game from
what’s ok in reality. On top of that video game companies are able to persuade parents to
purchase these violent games because they incorporate activities children already participate;

5
namely sports. As someone who plays video games regularly I never thought twice about the fact
that violent video games dominating the market. What I didn’t realize was the impact that more
violent versions of popular sports had on kids.
As other sources will show video games won’t turn a child into a murderer, but Carnagey
argues that more violent versions of sports do encourage kids to be more violent in their daily
activities. I experienced this first hand as a child while playing football with my friends after the
game “NFL Street Football” was released. We were playing touch football in the schoolyard
when I went to touch someone with the ball, when another player elbowed me in the nose while
yelling, “gamebreaker!” A phrase said in the game. As I, and my now crooked nose can attest,
children are easily influenced by what they and their peers perceive as “cool.” They see their
favorite athlete portrayed in video game punch someone which leads them to believe that this
action is socially acceptable. At the time, I recognized that the physical harm was not something
to mimic. However, I do remember how I would mimic the celebrations and showboating of the
players in the game. Therefore, this shows how impressionable some children are by video
games and incorporate what they see into their daily lives.
Video games impact each child differently. Nathan Smith wrote a dissertation titled,
“Does Video Game Content Matter? An Examination of Two Competing Ideas” published by
Psychology of Popular Media Culture in 2015. Smith, similar to Carnagey, notes the abundance
of violent games as he shows in his study that 98% of teen rated games contained some form of
intentional violence. Roughly 1/3 of the gameplay requires one player to harm another. Yet
Smith sees video games as a small, but good opportunity for kids to work together. Smith states,
“A number of studies with emerging adults have shown that playing a prosocial video game,
compared to a neutral and/or an aggressive video game is causally related to increased Prosocial

6
Behavior.” Prosocial behavior is voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, is a
social behavior that benefits other people or society It may not seem like it, but violent video
games do a great job of subtly forcing this. Though it may not be obvious, video games serve as
a great teaching tool to enforce this concept. Most games force the players to work together by
taking on certain roles and using the roles to work together. This one of small ways that video
games impact kids but having a place where teamwork comes naturally can be a tricky thing.
That being said the benefits related to prosocial behavior are small and there are several other
darker issues associated with video games that need to be addressed. The ability to work together
is a learned skill that does not always come naturally to children. Video games can serve as a
positive healthy outlet to teach this.
The darkest accusation video games are confronted with is do they impact children to
become criminals? Patrick Markey, Charlotte Markey and Juliana Finch set out to find the
answer. This group wrote “Violent video games and real-world violence: Rhetoric versus data.”
Published by Psychology of Popular Media Culture. The authors admit early on that video games
do cause mild aggression, Like Heather Foster earlier. The difference being is that Foster sees
the aggression as a bad thing. While this group of authors sees these small amounts of aggression
as a normal understandable thing. The authors said “The majority of research studies in this area
assess minor forms of aggression. (e.g., giving an unpleasant noise or too much hot sauce to
another person)” (Markey Iss. 4) this perfectly describes the way I have seen people act when
they get angry at a game. It seems almost silly to me that people see that as a real form of
aggression. It really depends on your own view of what aggression is that makes or breaks the
argument if video games cause aggression. Besides that, these authors disagree with most of the
extreme ideas of video games turning children into murderers or for possibly inspiring terrorist

7
attacks. After all the research these authors did they concluded that there isn’t any evidence to
back those claims up. Any instance where violent video games were related to a violent crime is
viewed as an isolated incident as well as very rare. The authors have found evidence that shows
that violent video games have the opposite effect on young people. The authors of this piece
concluded that the rate of violent crimes such as aggravated assaults and homicides drop at the
time of a popular violent video game release. They believe even though video games aren’t the
best use of time it does influence young adults to stay out of trouble. This dissertation brings the
idea that children have a good place get out pent up aggression where there is little to no risk of
harming others while playing. The authors of this piece believe that video games were given a
bad name due to being the scapegoats of politicians and people of power. Markey influenced my
perspective by showing how violent video game releasees correlate with drops in violent crime.
This shows that video games can keep young adults out of trouble and occupy their time in a way
that isn’t destructive.
Thanks to these sources I’ve now confirmed how video games can be bad for you and to
what extent. To find out more on not just the positive impacts on children, but also the impact on
special needs children. I have already explained why its important to me to more about how
video games impact special needs children but to help explain why it should be important to
everyone I looked to Durken Boyle, J. Hunter, and Conti Ramsden wrote “Video games for
children and adolescents with special educational needs.” Published by Zeitschrift
Psychologie/Journal of Psychology. They take very little time to acknowledge the relational
aggression caused by video games because they believed that there has already been more than
enough research on the topic. The authors of this piece do make it clear that they are pro video
games for children with and without learning disabilities. The authors like the idea of using video

8
games a tool for children with learning disabilities because it can even the playing field. They
noted “the researchers found no differences between participants with ADHD and typical
development on the number of moves and of impulsive errors in the games.” (Boyle)These
authors make it seem that even violent video games can create a safe place for children with
learning disabilities to be pushed outside of their comfort zone. I interrupted this to mean that
video games with the use of more research could be used a powerful learning platform for kids
with certain learning disabilities. This source also influenced my opinion by showing me that
there needs to be more hands-on studies revolving around special needs children. I have seen it
firsthand how the impact of playing video games can make the gap between a child with typical
development and a special needs child can disappear at least while they are gaming. However,
once again these authors point to the lack of studies that have been on the positive impacts video
games can have on children. They point to how people want to find why video games are bad so
that is where most of the research is spent. These authors chose to look at how they impact
special needs children positively and didn’t mention the impacts on children with typical
development specifically.
For more on how video games impact children positively I turned to Lee Marshall
a writer for The Globe and Mail. Marshall Lee wrote an article on September 8th, 2014 called
"WHY BLOWING STUFF UP (IN GAMES) IS GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN.” Lee, with a
clearly more light-hearted take on the subject, starts off by quickly noting something similar to
the points that were made by Markey. Lee says how video games have been given a bad name
due to the being the scapegoat of politicians, but Lee goes on to say, “But what's often lost in the
discourse is the fact that playing video games has an upside” (Lee 1) He also cites video games
as powerful brain training tools showing how they have been known to increase skills like

9
multitasking, navigation concentration and visual attention. These are all skills that can be easily
transitioned into everyday life without the children even being aware that it’s happening. Lee
points out that this is probably the easiest way he knows of to help impact young children to
sharpen these skills. Lee was the first author to promote violent video games specifically because
he thinks they challenge the mind in ways other games can’t. the last point Lee makes is the
difference between playing an hour or less a day which has been found to help stop anxiety and
depression, but more than three hours a day can cause anxiety and depression. Lee points to how
violent video games have both pros and cons but preaches that anything in moderation is fine.
Marshall Lee’s last point was that research on the benefits of video games is still in its early
stages and like anything needs to be approached with patience. Lee influenced my perspective by
saying moderation is key and playing more than three hours a day can have significant side
effects for children with developing minds and should be the parents’ decision to decide how
much and what kind of game is right for their child.
There seems to be two different broad opinions on video games children, the first is that
they are bad and turn you into a bad person and the second video games are fine they cause some
aggression, but more research is needed to examine the benefits of gaming. Even though there
haven’t been enough studies the Early studies show that video games can be used as a tool to
help children with learning disabilities but the way that the popular content is made we seem to
be ways off from using it properly. The idea that playing a violent game will impact your child to
turn into a violent criminal is very clearly disproven. It seems to be for the average kid video
games are a staple in everyday life and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. It seems that the
major cause for concern isn’t if a video game is violent it is how much the kid plays and reacts to
any game. Throughout my entire research process there was plenty of other new questions and

10
concerns raised. The first and most prominent being how can something so popular have so
many gaps in the studies? Video games have been around for so long it is hard to believe what
hasn’t been thoroughly researched. I understand that learning new things takes time, but it
appears that most of the time spent studying video has been spent trying to find something
horrendously wrong with them. it is just recently that anyone has stopped to think about the
possible benefits of playing violent video games. The next question I was left with is it if the
rating for a violent video game is 17 and up why is the main audience of a game children?
Obviously, it is up to the parent as to whether or not their child is ready, but it should be easier
for the parent to make an informed decision rather than just hearing their child say that other kids
own the game. This is what makes me wonder if we have an inefficient system for rating the
violent video games our children are playing regardless of the rating. Video games continue to
grow in popularity and it doesn’t seem like they will be slowing down any time soon. Violence
will continue to be the biggest theme in these games as they become bigger and more expensive
to make because it is the safest bet. That is why the continuing research of video games is so
critical, if we as a society are going to continue to allow our children to play violent video games
it’s even more important that we know the pros and cons of it.

11
Work Cited
Foster, Heather. How do Video Games Normalize Violence? A Qualitative Content Analysis of
Popular Video Games, Northern Arizona University, Ann Arbor, 2016. ProQuest,
https://ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/
docview/1915983690?accountid=15078
Carnagey, N. L. (2006). Is it competitiveness or violent content? the effects of violent sports
video games on aggression (Order No. 3229055). Available from ProQuest Dissertations &
Theses Global. (305315281). Retrieved from
https://ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/
docview/305315281?accountid=15078
Smith, N. J. (2015). Does video game content matter? an examination of two competing
idea Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(4), 277-295.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/10.1037/ppm0000030
Source 4 Markey, P. M., Markey, C. N., & French, J. E. (2015). Violent video games and real-
world violence: Rhetoric versus data. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(4), 277-295.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/10.1037/ppm0000030
Durkin, K., Boyle, J., Hunter, S., & Conti-Ramsden, G. (2013). Video games for children
and adolescents with special educational needs. Zeitschrift Für Psychologie/Journal of
Psychology, 221(2), 79-89.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/10.1027/2151-2604/a000138
Lee, Marshall. "WHY BLOWING STUFF UP (IN GAMES) IS GOOD FOR YOUR
BRAIN."The Globe and Mail, Sep 08, 2014. ProQuest,
COMMENTS ON ESSAY
 The essay is well presented. It has a chronological order with points well presented and
discussed. There is also the proper use of referencing into the sources that the writer used
to come up with the essay.
 More to that, there is a clear flow of points through out the paragraphs on the benefits of
video games and how they assist not only the enabled kids, but also the special needs kids
as well.

12
 The writer shows that he placed a lot of though while presenting the topical
argumentative essay with a clear show of proper research done on how video games
influence the kids.
 With more clear direction offered into the introduction, the writer would have made it
easier for the reader to follow that he intended to concentrate on the positive influences of
video games on the kids. He introduces his essay by stating that he would analyze the
many activities that kids take on but only concentrates on one. If this was well presented,
the introduction would have been more interesting.
 The writer shows skills in writing through well structured, punctuated and constructed
sentences. He also has used the tenses properly. With a few corrections on the comments
placed on the sidebar, the essay is good to go.
 Do take note that your essay has no title or header. This makes it hard for the reader to
understand what you wanted to discuss in your essay as writer.
 It’s also commendable that the writer has placed the intext citations correctly. However,
do make corrections on the work cited to follow the correct MLA referencing style
format. You can use the automated referencing tool provided for in word or research on
how to write the references properly. An example is like one presented below.
 Works Cited
 Franklin, John Hope. The Train from Hate. n.d.
 James, Missy., Merickel, P. Allan. "John Franklin's The Train from Hate." Reading Literature and
Writing Argument (2002): 168-169. Document.
 Subramanian, Ananth. "Who is a real life hero? What makes a person a hero (in life)?" 4 July
2017. Quora. Document. 19 July 2018.
 Till, Dennis. "What defines a hero? Are all heroes heroic?" 2011. The Guardian. Document. 19
July 2018.