Bogdan Lyashevskiy
Engl 102: Craig
5/31/12
Thinking of all the reasons video games became so popular among almost every single American. My first list came up endless. A form of interactive entertainment among friends, therapy during recovery, distractions from the pain or emotion, a solution to exclusion from a sport or social group or just to go to that place where one can control everything. Being in control, having the power, being top dog; everyone enjoys that. Reading article after article about video games, I am still claiming that video games have positives to them. To prove such a claim, I am writing this essay, my only issue, and many would agree, is that not enough research has been done to support the positives of video games. People blame them for the crimes and aggressive behavior from teenagers, but no true evidence has been found to prove that. Many of those who spend a lot of time on video games will agree with me that this type of entertainment is nothing more than a stress reliever and a crowd’s enjoyment. Throughout my research I found that a lot of what people are saying that video games are bad because of the violence, the gore, and the affects it causes and so on yet with no solid evidence. Research shows that there is not a real connection between the violence and the after effects of violent video games. Teens don’t become mass murders or professional snipers from playing a video game. The problem that I find here is that there are so many claims made by researchers in all of these articles but there is barley any statics or facts to back up the claims. I find it strange that research says that gamers are affected by aggression, they are violent people, who commit crimes, yet you look at these teens and when they shut of the console their back in the real world living just fine. From my point of view, if video games did have as a bad of an effect like some say than, crimes among teenagers, serious crimes, like murder, robberies, rape and other criminal activity that we see in games would be at a much higher rate.
The biggest factor we hear when talking about how bad video games are, is aggression. While playing a violent game that involves killing and other violence, your aggression level starts to rise and the more you play and get into the game, the more your aggression level increases. Thomas Kooijmans talks about the aggression as a short term effect of the video games. He explains that over the past twenty or so years and violence in video games has increased and changed significantly yet the only part of the human that is affected is their aggression, and then there are no long terms effects, none that are have scientific proof. Kooijmans explains when the player becomes aggressive; he or she becomes more competitive and puts in more effort to accomplish a goal, whatever it may be in the video game. This impacts on how the player thinks, feels, and behaves. Most claim that teenagers are easily angered and find violence as the solution to all their problems, just like in video games. This leads to school shooting or student bullying or harassment because teens are less willing to be caring and helpful to their peers. Christopher Ferguson and John Kilburn both talk about how the crimes have increased among teens and those video games are to blame. But the author doesn’t show a link between the video games and the crimes that they cause. If a player is smart enough to achieve higher levels of a video game, then they can definitely be able to understand the boundaries of what’s meant to be played in a game must stay in that game because in real life it is punished instead of rewarded. In one of the articles I came across, Christopher J. Ferguson and John Kilburn focus on explaining how more and more video games are being sold with every year yet crimes amongst teens are decreasing. With more advancement in technology these numbers will only continue to rise. This just shows that despite the amount of violence and gore games have is not the reason for teenagers to act out. Ferguson and Kilburn also mention that “the influence of violent video games on serious acts of aggression or violence is minimal, and publication bias is a problem in this research field (Ferguson and Kilburn 2).” This is saying that the reason aggression is made such a big deal is because the authors write about their opinions more than about the truth.
People claim that the aggression is a negative thing and can lead to crimes, but like in any other game or even sport, it is short termed and can be controlled. During any game, aggression builds up which motivates the player helping them achieve better performance and come out victorious and shortly after the game is over, it wears off because that’s all it was, just a game. But even in real life situations aggression benefits in motivation and self confidence. Aggression is often expressed when one is standing up for oneself or another. It plays a big role when it comes to physical challenges as well as mental. Making a claim saying that due to aggression the video games cause, teens become violent and commit crimes, is stupid. Experts say that this effect is very short term and is not harmful to teens, and is not the sole reason to violence among teens. Huesmann tells how video games are not to blame for the violence and crimes among teens. He says that the only thing video games can be connected with is aggression, which is not a permanent effect, and he doesn’t mention of any crimes committed within this short period of aggression due to video games. Not only this but Huesmann also says that playing violent video games for a long time increases risk of aggression, he explains that not only do video games not cause violence but they don’t always lead to aggression, they just have a potential to do that. The American Psychological Association wrote in their article about video games how the more parental control is involved the lower the aggression level is in a child. They also mentioned that “because video games are such good teachers, it is critical to help parents, educators, and policy-makers understand how to maximize their benefits while minimizing potential harms (APA 1).” Parents are helping children with social skills, motor and coordinating skills as well as improving their learning ability by allowing the usage of video games but to minimize aggression they need to be more controlling in the type of games they allow their kids to play, the amount of time spent as well as teaching them inappropriateness of violent solutions to real life conflicts and alternative nonviolent to problems. Parents don’t spend much time playing violent games, they see the word violent and gore and instantly become bias about that genre of games thinking that nothing good comes with it. The association explains good point, there are ratings on games, the ratings explain the level of violence and what age the game is designed for, but when a 14 year old boy asks his dad for game rated 17 and over and the dad doesn’t think twice and gets him the game. These types of games have gory bloody scenes and some graphic killings and so on, the type of stuff that is inappropriate for a 14 year old boy. In a case like this, the boy does not have understanding of a 17 year old teenager and cannot control his aggression the way an older teen can, which can lead to some serious negative side effects. All in all the American Psychological Associations warns parents that if the type of games teens play and the time they spend on games is not kept under control, the chances of something bad happening increases.
When engaging in a First Person Shooters video game, or let’s say any shooters games, there is a lot of running, jumping, shooting, and doing all kinds of things in the game to complete your mission. Whoever has played any time of a shooters game, knows that this takes quite a bit of skill and concentration. Experts say that during game play you are working on your hand-eye coordination skills. You work on hand-eye coordination skills pretty much whenever you’re playing any type of game. Shooters games happen to have most amount of action therefore the hand-eye coordination skills is trained the most during this time. Thomas A. Kooijmans states in his article Effects of Video Games on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior During Development, that “a relationship has been shown between increased videogame playing and improvements to eye-hand coordination as well as manual dexterity, and reaction time (Kooijmans 2).” As simple as these skills may be, they are very useful in daily life. During game playing active involvement improves learning, rewards increase learning, and repeating something over and over increases learning. As a result the player becomes more motivated to getting more rewards as well as confidence in themselves with each level achievement. So even though no one buys games to specifically work on their self-confidence and their hand-eye coordination skills, they still increase these skills with every play.
As surprising as it was to me video games improve vision for crucial tasks like reading and driving. While playing a video game your eyes have to be able to track several objects at once as well as paying attention to a series of fast-moving events. Brian Handwerk wrote, in his National Geographic News article Video Games Improve Vision, Study Says, “the ability, called contrast sensitivity function, allows people to discern even subtle changes in shades of gray against a uniformly colored backdrop (Handwerk 1),” which according to work led by Daphne Bavelier, is “why a regular regimen of action video game training can provide long-lasting visual power (Bavelier 1).” Bavelier believes that “once you’ve had eye surgery or get corrective lenses, exposing yourself to these games should help the optical system to recover faster and better (Bavelier 1).” Bavelier isn’t the only one from the University of Rochester that has conducted research to prove that video games improve vision. Shawn Green along with Bavelier wrote about their studies in their article Effect of Action Video Games on the Spatial Distribution of Visuospatial Attention concluding that “action video-game play results in an increase in the amount of available attention resources as well as an increase in the selectivity of spatial process (Green and Bavelier 1).” They believe that many of the day-to-day tasks people complete don’t have much relation to have 20/20. Things like driving focus on relevant stimuli such as street pedestrians, animals, and other cars while ignoring the environment. Improving this ability can be done through video gaming, because you have to complete a mission while paying attention to things that may kill you, reacting to certain situations as well as adjusting to the surrounding environment.
Most teenagers play video games in a group setting. Through video games they bring safe competition amongst each other. Players learn to work as teammates even when competing against each other. They learn to compromise in certain situations as well as encourage each other with helpful hints and skills. When competing in teams, teenagers learn the use of proper communication between one another as well as the division of labor. Parents would strongly agree with me on the part where video games are a safe form of entertainment. Entertainment such as contact sports increases the dangers of players getting physically injured. Players have a bigger chance of getting bullied during games due to their abilities or lack of having enough skill to play the game as good as other team members. It is also a place for disagreement and dispute to occur resulting in players hurting each other. Through video games players have the ability to choose who they play with and against. There is no physical contact between players therefore no one has the chance of getting injured. My interviewee claimed that he spends much of his evenings playing video games. “They range from Maximum Pain to NBA 2012 and NFL 2012. I enjoy sports as well and play football as well as basketball. It sucks getting hurt and having to sit games out. My preference between physical contact sports and playing the sport in a video game is close to 50-50. Playing in real life I get the benefit of being physically in shape and leading my school teams to wins but in video games I don’t end up with a sprained ankle or scraped up arm. And my parents would rather I didn’t get hurt so much so they like it when I play in my room.” Video games are also safer in that teenagers spent more time inside and less time out in the world getting into trouble. Even though violence in video games has been the blame for violence in real situations, parents would rather have their kids shoot and rob someone in a game then real life. Having their kids at home gives parents the ability to monitor and control the type of games and activities their kids do as well as the time spent on it. Most would rather have their child stuck in a game, even though they don’t favor it, knowing that their child is safe from crime and danger rather than having their kids who-knows-where doing who-knows-what. It all goes back to parents maximizing the benefits of video gaming. Parents can help their kid revel aggression in a safe manner as well as settle disputes between competitions in an appropriate way.
Video games have the ability to not only bring together friends into a safe environment to relax and enjoy each other but they also contribute to emotional health if gaming partners include family members. Cuihua Shen state that “if I am playing with existing family members and friends, I am extending my social life in cyberspace, and that is actually good for me psychologically (Shen 2).” Shen and Dmitri Williams analyzed surveys of online video gamers about their level of loneliness, family communication and quality as well as their usage of internet. “The investigators found that gamers who played EverQuest II with family members experienced various psychological benefits, including more family communication time (Shen and Williams 2).” If parents join their kids in doing what their kids like to do, they have a way of bring each other together and improve their communication amongst the family. They themselves may be able to enjoy the games.
Along with bringing families together video games have been able to allow people to recover from injuries. “Incorporating these recent game systems into fields such as occupational, physical and recreational therapy has added fun to the world of rehabilitation- and that’s something most people would never expect (Kaufman 1),” wrote Elizabeth M. Kaufman in her article The playful side of rehabilitation in the Mayo Clinic Health Letter. Not only do teens get to enjoy video games but through them seniors can still do their favorite activities. Kaufman explained how her patients have physical limitations which effect what they can do but virtual video games have helped her “introduce people to a simulated version of their favorite sport (Kaufman 1).” This makes recovery more exciting and engaging. “I’ve found these virtual game systems to be an excellent tool for someone who has an illness or a newly acquired physical or cognitive challenge (Kaufman 1).” Not only can older adults use video games to recover or recreate but also youth and adults. I’ve read articles about video gaming being used as a recovery method for motor and coordinating skills after physical injuries to hands and arms. “Technology and simulation games such as the Wii have provided therapists with new tool use in rehabilitation. As a result, the people we work wit have a new outlook on recreation (Kaufman 1),” claims Kaufman. My expectations were that video games are manly played by adolescences and teenagers as well as young adults but finding out that ever senior citizen are using them to create and still enjoy their favorite hobbies is very fascinating to me because even the older generations can now agree with me that video games have benefits.
“We know that healthier lifestyle doesn’t have to be and these games are a perfect way for consumers to connect health with a technology they already enjoy (Puopolo 1),” said Paul Puopolo, director of consumer innovation of Humana, in the article Humana Adds Free Online Games for Young and Young-at-Heart. Interactive video games have been helpful in promoting healthier lifestyles and more physical activity. Humana is one of many websites that has created games that inform, educate and inspire children to make healthier lifestyle choices regarding nutrition and physical activity. Because children spend a lot of time on media and technological entertainment during the ages they should be learning how to live a healthy lifestyle, parents can use the games their children play to teach their children about physical exercise and nutritious eating habits. Not only will the games do that they will also stimulate their attention, language, memory, planning and abstract-thinking skills. William D. Russell and Mark Newton would also agree that video games have benefit in promoting exercise to children and adolescence. “Recent interest in interactive video game technology has spurred the notion that exercise from this technology may have meaningful physiological and psychological benefits for children and adolescence (Russell and Newton 296).” The lack of exercise in children and adolescence is because of barriers between the two. Childhood obesity increases from lack of free-time physical activity as the concurrent increases in television time, computer use and video game activity. In adolescence these barriers are lack of parental support, pervious inactivity, siblings’ nonparticipation in physical activity and being female. “An obvious dilemma then, in the effort to get more children and young adults physically active is that many sedentary activities are perceived as immediately-reinforcing and enjoyable, whereas many physical activities capable of improving health and fitness are perceived as less enjoyable and immediately reinforcing (Russell and Newton 298),” wrote Russell and Newton. Going out and exercising is the old school way of staying healthy and with all the technology around kids have no interest in going out to run around and kick a ball or shoot some hoops. Creating interactive games is putting enjoyment as well as exercise together. “The principle of interactive games is the notion of getting players to directly interface their physical or sport-based movements so they directly control or coincide with movement activity within the video games (Russell and Newton 298).” Games such as Dance Dance Revolution, Xavix, Eye-Toy, Nintendo Wii, and CatEye are not only being easily available but are marked specifically for children and teenagers. “These interactive applications can elicit physical activity levels in which as many as 300-500 calories per hour may be expended and which may provide an immediate enjoyment factor or motivational incentive some children and young adults need to create in physical activity (Russell and Newton 298).” Parents may be more against buying these game applications because they’ll only see it as a way to give into what their kids want and because of their costs. But if you think about the long run it is better to spend the money on a game that will benefit your child then to waste it on a medical bill later because your child has health problems from lack of physical exercise. A big part of making a beneficial decision is being open minded because most people only find video games as a negative.
The more advanced and popular a form of entertainment gets, the more perks it is going to have, or so it seems. From personal experience I can say that any technological form of entertainment will only become a negative when the participant takes it out of proportion. Video games have always been a fun laidback way for my friends and I to enjoy out time together on bad weather days and late hangout nights. Games were merely invented to entertain and that’s what they do for the most part. I have gone in dept and discovered benefits of video games that I never would have thought possible. Who knew they could improve vision along with hand-eye coordination. I always found video games to be safer than BMXing or playing a sport because of the injuries from physical games as well as distraction from getting curious and getting myself into trouble with crimes and the law. It’s fascinating that doctors have proven that video games are a big bonus in therapy and benefits patients psychologically. Bring entertainment and healthy lifestyles together will only help children improve their physical being as well as decrease childhood obesity and health issues. My research has been eye-opening for me because not only am I proving my point I have learned new ways I can use video games for my personal benefits. To prove furthermore whether I’m right or wrong more research definitely needs to be done. If I had the education and certification to conduct it myself I would definitely do it, but since I don’t I am leaving that task to the higher powers.
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