Essay: The correlation between video games and behavioral changes

There is a correlation between video games and movies and behavioral changes, especially in young adults and teenagers. Interestingly, the majority of the young adults spend the largest proportion of their time watching visual media and playing video games. Many researchers have noted that video games play a leading role in physiological and cognitive development in most teenagers. Many studies have been conducted on different age groups showing the negative effects of violent movies and video games on human behavior. Clearly, violent movies and video games have some psychological effects on the teenagers, including aggressive thoughts and behavior, harboring of unrealistic and imaginative thoughts, and social isolation.
First, violent video games and movies result in aggressive thoughts and behavior. Exposure to violent media tends to trigger aggressive thoughts and increase the individual’s hostile feelings and aggression. Because of aggressive thoughts that those people have, they always keep attacking other people. In April 1999, for instance, Klebold and Harris, who were students at Columbine High School in Colorado, assaulted their schoolmates, staff, and faculty. They killed thirteen people and injured twenty-three others before killing themselves with guns. Although it proved impossible to determine the reason for their attack on their classmates and teachers, investigators said that one possible contributory factor to the violent behavior was video games (Anderson & Dill 772). My younger 20 years brother is another victim of these violent videos games. He is usually sweet, calm and cordial but when he is playing a game called ‘Rapid Game 2′ that is about killing people he is a different person. He has become exceedingly aggressive, and he expresses his anger by throwing things at people whenever he loses the game. Also, when he is playing, I can’t ask him anything because he gets mad and screams at me. He has a bad behavior when he is in the world game. These examples clarify that violent video games intoxicate young adults and teens, and they strive towards having an actual scenario of what they experience in the videos.
The second negative psychological effect of violent games and movies on teenagers is the harboring of unrealistic and imaginative thoughts. Many children who tend to spend lots of their time watching violent movies or playing violent video games have the probability of exhibiting unimaginable violent behaviors, and this can affect their minds. Recent cases where school-going children, especially boys enjoyed a shooting spree killing their partners qualify to be irrational acts. Most of these boys tend to enjoy playing video games where people are engaged in shooting each other, and they feel that they want to try it too. These teens learn how to use a gun and reenact what they watch in the violent video games. This will eventually end up in their owning illegal guns and trying to perfect the violent act. We can find many teenagers involved in killing or shooting because they think they live in the video games or movies. These boys are not realistic, so they cannot separate the fiction from the reality.
The third negative psychological effect is social isolation. Most teenagers who play and watch violent games isolate themselves from the world. Violent video games can be addictive. Some teens and young adults find it hard to accommodate anything else in their lives because they cherish the company of the game in the comfort of their homes; therefore, some kids may develop some isolation problems leaving them to be always lonely. A good example would be the working class’ children who are left at home when they are not at school. Some children are allowed to play the violent video games to kill boredom, and these games end up replacing all their peers or family members. Consequently, the children grow up without acknowledging the role of others in their life. Young adults who find violent games enjoyable, often escape from school extracurricular activities and from social activities with family and friends to spend more time alone playing those games. In the past, the children had time to interact with their parents, but now parents keep working while the children keep playing violent video games or watching violent movies. This leads them to be more isolated and even become shy. They do not know how to interact and be with other people anymore. For instance, I have a cousin who spends almost all his time in his room playing violent video games. He hardly shares anything with his family and is very shy. His parents are so sure that his withdrawal is due to his exposure to the violent video games, which offers him better company than anyone else. In this way, teenagers become to keep themselves away from other people.
To conclude, it is apparent that violent video games and movies cause negative effects on young people. An individual’s basic personality structure is affected by repeated exposure to violent movies and video games. Therefore, it is advisable to discourage extensive exposure to violent media before the long-term effects start influencing an individual’s behavior and altering their personality structure. The psychological effects of violent games and movies on people’s mind are violent behavior, developing unrealistic thoughts, and social isolation.