Video Games

Most kids in my age-group's generation grew up playing video games. It was the first big advance in technology that meant something to us as kids, and it changed the way kids were without a doubt. But I don't necessarily believe that this change is all negative as most people believe. I grew up playing Sonic and Tail's and Mortal Combat with my little brother. This was a favorite past time of ours for hours on end. But I don't view this as a negative or "violent" experience in the least. We still grew up playing outside for hours during the days, but nights were reserved for video games. After we had eaten our dinner and taken our baths, homework having been completed of course, we were allotted two hours for whatever we wanted before bed. More often than not, we both immediately gravitated toward the basement TV for some gaming. And although Mortal Combat was considered a somewhat violent game for young children, I felt no more in tune with my angry, violent side than I had before ever palying the game.
So for many scholars and whoever else claims that our society is now violent because of video games, I say how is this so? If I had not had the experience of sitting down at night and playing these games with my little brother, I feel as though we would have had no sort of connection at that age. We had very different interests, me loving barbies and him loving cars, that we needed this one thing that we both enjoyed and we could do together. I praise Mortal Combat for giving me great times with my brother, ones that I know I will never forget about. And on top of this nostalgic reason for believing games can be a positive thing, we never once acted more violently toward each other or anyone else because of this two hour a night routine.
I believe that children are growing up to become more violent in today's society because of the way that they were brought up, or the location of where they were raised. I don't think that it has a whole lot to do with these games they are playing. None of these games promote going out and shooting an innocent stranger or someone that has done something you don't approve of, they promote killing the bad guys. Although I don't believe we should even be killing the bad guys, it is a parents job to make sure their child is aware of these right and wrong things. Many statistics show that people in bad parts of town are mainly underprivileged children that had to fight for what they needed to get by, and didn't even have access to things such as televisions and video game systems. So where did they learn their violent tendencies? Certainly not from video games. I can understand how people may jump to these conclusions, because there is clearly violence in some video games, but it is in no way urging a child to get up one day and go shoot up their elementary school. I think that people are violent in general, and they need to be taught that these things are not ok, and they will eventually make their own decisions.