Video games Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Video games - Essay Example Video games are the most prevalent form of entertainment among children as many of them spent most of their free time in front of computers and large screens indulging in these games for hours on end without even a break (Price). The widespread coverage of the internet and personal computers all over the world in the modern day information technology age enables children to easily access, play and even share video games with their peers in other places through the online gaming cyber space. The pervasiveness of video games and video gaming as the preferred form of entertainment for children and young adults all over the world has been a major cause of concern over the possible impacts of this phenomenon on the behavior of children in the long term; precisely, the perceived adverse effects of video games on the behavior of children have raised numerous concerns over this novel invention of the present day century. Sociological studies have been concerned with the effects of media violence on behavior from the 1950s onwards and a particular focus of these studies has been on video games since the 1980s given the ubiquity of this phenomenon among the American children, especially boys (Carey, 2013). The debate regarding the impact of video gaming on children has been highly polarized with two antagonistic arguments dominating the discourse; one school of thought holds that video gaming does not result to any significant effects on the behavior of participants. Contrariwise, the opposing school of thought refutes this perspective by insisting that video games often result to significant effects on the behavior of participants; this perspective draws evidence from a vast body of research from empirical studies conducted by developmental and social psychologists on the effects of video games on behavior. This essay will contribute to the ongoing debate by examining