Middle schoolers spent quite a bit of time playing video games. Sometimes, even games that are too violent or mature for their age. Kids choose to play these types of games for socialization, power, emotional regulation, excitement, and achievement. These games allow kids to bond with friends and duel them in real time. They also give a nice virtual outlet to experience power.
Socializing while playing these games is quite easy. You can duel your friends in real time and you can meet people in a match and add them as a friend to play the game with them.
Middle schoolers also play to feel powerful because these are action packed games where you can almost feel like a leader, depending on what gamemode you’re playing.
Kids also play these games for emotional regulation, as they can relieve stress very easily because again, they are action packed games. A fellow 7th grader, Dylan, agrees. “If you’re mad, you probably go play video games to relieve stress to get your anger out. You don’t want to do that in real life, but you can do it in the video game.”
Kids get a thrill out of them too because of the gore and missions. There is a lot of achievement that you can gain when playing these games. For example, Call Of Duty has a weapon skin/camo system where you can complete challenges to get different skins/camos for your chosen weapon. Another example is GTA, where you can complete missions and different tasks to get in-game money.
Now, although there is no concrete evidence or link of kids playing these games and leading to severe violence in the real world, these violent games can potentially lead to real crime. Even with the benefits of the stress, powerful experience, emotional regulation, achievements, and socialization, it’s important to consider the negative consequences of playing these games.
