The Ethics of Violence in Computer Games :: Technology Essays

The morals of Violence in Computer GamesViolence in telly endorses was neer a hot topic until April 20th, 1999. After the Columbine High discipline shooting rocked the earth with its unbelievable random brutality, a shocked nation searched for answers. There must have been some reason for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolds all-fired rampage. The nation needed a scapegoat for this horrible event, something to take the blame. A lot of the blame landed on the media, the music assiduity, and uncivilized video games. The debate over how video games influence kids still continues. There atomic number 18 many opinions on how harmful or harmless video games truly argon. Recently, many legislators seem to have decided that video games are, in fact, actually harmful to kids. Legislation is currently being created to restrict and censor violent video games. Traditionally, parents have been the ones responsible and in control of what their children were exposed to on the computer. Now le gislators want to govern what kids are exposed to rather than presumption this job to the parents. This is a departure from how other forms of media are governed. Kids are de jure allowed to buy any kind of music regardless of parental advisories and to see to it any kind of ferocity on TV. It is the parents job to determine if their kids are allowed to listen to that music or watch that TV. It should remain the resembling mien with video games. It is unethical to take these choices out of the parents hands. It is the parents responsibility and right to send away their children how they see fit. However, the sedulousness also has an important role to play. The music industry puts parental advisories on music content parents may find unfitting and parents are informed of channel content when they sign up for cable. Likewise, the game industry needs to improve upon their methods of informing parents of the content in their games. Parents should be responsible for regulating the types of games their kids are exposed to, however, the video game industry has a responsibility to accurately and honestly communicate the level of violence depicted in their games. The effects of video games on kids is a relatively new topic of research. Initialstudies have resulted in inconclusive and strange results. Most researchers have simply decided that video games should have the same negative effect on children as TV does, since the two mediums wait to be so similar.