Many people have expressed concern about the effects of violent games on children. While initially I didn't understand what their arguments were based on; I now realize that their logic was grounded in the cultivation theory.
The cultivation theory is the idea that as people are exposed to an idea and have it reinforced, that idea greatly effects them. Even though the idea might be untrue, the person will take it as truth. For these people, unrealistic ideas and stereotypes become the norm and they expect them to be the truth. This can obviously adversely affect behavior if the person is exposed to violent and otherwise unacceptable behavior.
Nowhere is unacceptable behavior closer to people than video games, or so some people argue. Since people are themselves acting badly, they see these acts as something that they can do themselves. Now I'm a gamer myself, and I don't really agree with these conclusions, as I haven't been affected by playing violent games over the years. I never understood why people thought video games could affect behaviors. How ever the cultivation theory makes a fairly good argument as to why they could. If an impressionable child plays a lot of video games they could come to believe that the behaviors presented in games as normal, as opposed to only acceptable in the virtual world. The cultivation explained the other side of the argument to me in a logical way. I still don't agree, but at least I can better understand the argument.
link to an article on the controversy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy
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