Video Games: Good or Bad?

by Danielle Bonilla

ŒHouse of the Dead¹, ŒVirtual Fighter¹, and ŒQuake 3¹, mixed together, sounds like a recipe for desensitizing kids about violence. The more violent the video game, the more kids like it. Are all of these violent video games contributing to the violence in real life? Some of our parents are worried that this may be the case. Should we be worried?

According to Chris Byrne, Editor of The Toy Report, and an expert on video games, ³We live in a free market economy. Let the buyer beware! Parents must know what their kids can handle.² He went on to say that we need to separate fantasy from reality. Chris compared what happens to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Star Wars, Power Rangers with the violence shown on video games. It¹s not real. Chris admits that he enjoys playing fighting games because, after a bad day at work, he releases his stress by fantasy-video-fighting. But, he would never take that energy out on a real person.

Do video games make kids become less imaginative? Chris Byrne told me that video games let you imagine yourself in a whole other world that¹s created for you. You are not making up your own world, you are participating in a fantasy. ³Video games give the gamer a framework in which to imagine. It¹s like a sonnet which gives you a metered rhyme framework in which you imagine a verse,² he said.

In addition, kids are fearless of technology. They realize that there is no mistake that is too big that it can¹t be fixed. Video games help kids create strategies that, in turn, help them solve a problem.

So tell me, are video games on your holiday wish list?

We need to separate fantasy from reality.