Power, fame, and excitement, what more could a young adult want? Today’s media can hand all three of these things over to a viewer or player within seconds. Video games and media have excelled to creating an exciting virtual lifestyle that anybody can have at their fingertips. Younger generations have gotten more and more into playing and watching violent and vulgar content which has been proven to carry over into their life outside of media.
With increased access to interactive games on game consoles, youth have a much easier time finding and playing violent games. In 2005, a study that took place showing that “49% of children had a game console in their bedroom 31% had a computer, and 20% had Internet access” (Olson 59). Many researchers have shown concern that the violence that children see in video games may carry over into the real world and create more “aggressive behavior or thoughts, desensitization to violence, and decreased empathy” (Olson). This idea of violence transferring over into real life scenarios raises the concern that the players perceptions of boundaries between reality and fantasy may become blurred.
A study that took place in 2008 focused on 48 boys. Of those 48 boys, half of them played their games with a parent in the room and the other half with boys only. Participants were asked questions about their thoughts on the games as well as other follow up questions. One question a moderator asked one of the boys was “’Do you think that playing a lot of games like this makes kids think, act, or talk differently?’” The boy who was being interviewed replied with “’Yeah, definitely. ’Cause you might not want to fight a lot, and then when you play one of these games, you might want to fight more, so you might get in trouble a lot more’” (Olson 63). Many of the boys also showed a great deal of concern with exposing younger siblings to the content of their games. One boy states “’Little kids, they don’t know the basic meanings of life. So once they see that [bad behavior in games], they’re going to think, ‘Oh, that’s how life goes. You can swear and go around hitting people and stuff’” (Olson 64).
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Another study shows that the violence of video games can have a desensitization effect and decrease empathetic behavior toward strangers, friends and family members. Research shows that the majority of video game consumers are young adults and as many know, emerging adulthood is an important and developmental period in people’s lives. This point in a person’s life they are very prone to having an abundance of identity exploration, social understanding, and deep relationship formation. When playing these games and becoming more and more desensitized to relationships and the outside world, it becomes harder for those players to create and keep meaningful relationships with others as well as have empathy for strangers. Many of these violent video games replicate realistic interpretations of human violence, giving the player points for intense kill shots, gruesome bloodshed, or assaulting other characters. Not only do games reward its players for profound violence, but a study by Haninger and Thompson “found that almost all T (Teen)-rated games (90%) required the player to injure other characters and 69% of the games required or rewarded the killing of other characters” (Fraser et al).
Another negative effect that violent video game content can have on a young adult is decreased prosocial activity. Prosocial behavior can be defined as “voluntary behaviors made with the intention of benefiting others…often accompanied with psychological and social rewards for its performer” (Anderman et al 708). These behaviors can be volunteering somewhere, sharing toys, comforting a friend, and much more. Typically, emerging adulthood is a time in a person’s life that they will typically have more prosocial behavior. They have less commitments in their life at this point compared to other times such as when they are married or have children. Since they have less commitment they are typically able to give more of their time to others.
Considered a positive attribute to human development, prosocial behavior has many psychological perks; it is able to help reduce things like anxiety and sadness as well as reduce the chances of dropping out, teen pregnancy, and more. Violent video games that have the ability to desensitize players will lower a person’s prosocial behavior. In 2009 a study took place that compared the willingness to help those in need using those who played violent video games regularly versus those who did not. After playing a violent video game, a fake fight was staged, “those who played a violent game took over 450% longer to help the stranger, were less likely to even notice the fight occurred, and rated the fight as less serious” (Fraser et al). This study is one of the many pieces of evidence that proves that mature content at a young age can damage cognitive development.
Not only do studies show that excessive time playing violent video games can have a negative effect on children’s cognitive development, television and media can have those same effects as well. While media can potentially help children learn about emotional skills as well as the nature and causes of them, but it can also contribute to children’s fears and anxieties. Journalist Barbra Wilson states that “both fictional and news programming can cause lasting emotional upset” (Wilson) as well as can affect children’s social development. Wilson also states that very strong evidence has shown that “violent television programming contributes to children’s aggressive behavior” (Wilson) similar to the affect that violent video games have.
Intense, violent, or mature content has the capabilities of desensitizing children and young adults during their development. Damaging prosocial behavior as well as empathetic abilities, a child and young adult’s development stage is very fragile. According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory, “children observe and imitate persons found in their everyday worlds, including characters on TV, particularly when those characters are interesting and personally relevant” (Linebarger et al). With this being said, if children and young adults find a character in a television show or video game that they look up to and are interested in, they may tend to start acting like that character.
For example, if a child is watching South Park and really enjoys the way that Cartman, one of the main characters, is acting and speaking, that child may start to act a similar way in their everyday life. This behavior may get himself or herself into trouble at school or with parents. If this behavior continues it can carry over into that child’s young adult life or even adult life which will lead to inappropriate behavior and lower social skills or status among peers. This imitation of a liked character can also occur in real life. A child or young adult may begin to intimidate a sibling or parent with hopes to be like them. This can have a similar affect on the person’s cognitive development that media and video games can have.
Violent video games and inappropriate or mature media have the capability of damaging a young adult’s cognitive development. If a child or young adult is not ready for the mature content or is exposed to it too often, it can desensitize the child as well as damage their prosocial and empathetic behaviors. If this occurs, the child’s social skills and status may decline and will be difficult to regain. As stated earlier, the number of consoles and access to violent games and media that teens have today in their homes has rapidly inclined. Thus it is proven that mature content has the terrifying capabilities of damaging a young adult’s cognitive development.
