Video Games and Juvenile Delinquency (Essay Sample)

Video Games and Juvenile Delinquency
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Video Games and Juvenile Delinquency
Juvenile delinquency affects everyone in the United States, be it parents, teachers, neighbors, and families. Despite the fact that juvenile delinquency rates have decreased over the past few years, the levels are still very high (Saminsky, 2011). All stakeholders such as parents and teachers have instituted various programs to counter this problem. Some programs have recorded a great amount of success. However, other programs have not achieved the intended level of success.
Juvenile delinquency is a social problem that should be approached from a multifaceted angle. The main causes of juvenile delinquency are family and personal problems (Siegel & Welsh, 2013). Family problems revolve around the influence of the family on the teenager and include economic hardship, psychological problems like mental illness in the family, discrimination and poor parenting skills. Personal problems include social concerns, drug abuse, ill-mannered friends and exposure to a harsh environment (“Causes and Solutions,” 2013). One of the major discussions among social circles has been the influence of video games on juvenile delinquency (Markman, 2011)
According to Matt DeLisi, a sociology professor at Iowa State University, there exists a strong relationship between violent video games and juvenile delinquency (DeLisi, Anderson, & Gentile, 2013).While other researchers point to the antisocial behavior of children who are addicted to video games, DeLisi, though he does not entirely write off their assertion, maintains that video games are a major factor influencing juvenile delinquency among adolescents today ( as cited in Blanchard, 2009). Another researcher who closely studied the relationship of video games and juvenile delinquency was Douglas Gentile, a psychology associate professor. Gentile, Anderson and DeLisi (2013), focused heavily on the exposure of teenagers to violence in video games and the repercussions, which include minor aggression, abusive language, and fights. Gentile was startled at the high correlation that existed between the two: violent video games and juvenile delinquency. Although teenagers who were involved in juvenile delinquency had a history of having so many things going wrong for them, violent video games seemed to aggravate the situation and led to earlier cases of juvenile delinquency among teenagers (DeLisi, Anderson, & Gentile, 2013).
Researchers carried out a study in the state of Pennsylvania on the level of exposure to video games among 227 juvenile offenders (Gentile et al., 2013). The study was carried out in an effort to explain the major risk factors when it came to these games. The study proved to be very informative as they found that the more teenagers were exposed to violent video games, the more violent and aggressive they were. The two factors were proved to be directly proportional to each other.
There are many false facts about the effects of video game exposure (Gentile et al., 2013). This makes it hard for parents to discern between the positive and negative effects. With such amounts of vague and sometimes false information, most parents will choose to avoid video games altogether as they assume video games will only have negative effects, on their children. However, video games have some positive effects. They help with critical thinking as action games require quick decisions from players, and they also inculcate a culture of problem solving through the various tasks and adventures in the games. Video games also encourage social development among teens. They can act as teaching aids to help children understand difficult concepts in the class environment (Weber, 2014). Researchers have also found out that video games improve hand-eye coordination (Saminsky, 2010). To reduce the negative impact of violent video ...