Effects of Video Games

             The "video" in "video game" traditionally refers to a raster display device. However, in this 21st century with the popular use of the term "video game", it’s now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms, examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms are broad in range, from large computers such as mainframes, to handheld devices such as cell phones and PDAs. In my opinion video games are bad influence to all of us. This is because video games have an even more powerful influence than television and movies, whose detrimental effects have been documented for decades.

            First of all, in video game play the player learns to associate violence with pleasure, example rewards for hurting another character. This undermines moral sensitivity. Under normal conditions, human emotional wiring is designed to abhor violence and feel rewarded for helping others. Those who play violent video games build opposite intuitions that they will take into the rest of their life. Other than that, the player practices violent behaviour hundreds if not thousands of times, much more practice than normal activities receive. Whatever a person practices repeatedly becomes an automatic response. Violent games teach people how to behave like a criminal and to intentionally hurt others for en example burning people alive in Postal2.  

 

          Furthermore, video games can be addictive because they give immediate rewards for learning. Child and adolescent brains are typically susceptible to addictions as their brains are under development till the middle 20s. Recent brain research is suggesting that any addictive behaviour like drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling and violence can harm the final stages of brain development in young adults, leaving them with a less than mature decision making system and diminished empathy for others. Based on Neuroscientific studies reduced cognitive brain functions in individuals exposed to violent media. The greater the experience with violent media, the lower was the activation of brain areas for thinking, learning, reasoning and emotional control. Talk about dumping down the younger generations!!

 

          Other than that, there are also quite a number of games that simply waste our time. At an age where children should be learning to build strong social relationships, but now many of them lack of communication skills because they spend most of their valuable time alone, engaged in video games. Such video games do not instil any values in children and let them alone to learn to build growing relationship or communication skills. On top of lacklustre communication, these games are also promoting idleness, therefore contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic. Uncontrolled weight gain is already very hard to manage as children begin to mature and bear in mind obesity being one of the top diseases in Malaysia today. Video games also will cause the children’s school achievement to decline.

         In a nutshell, I agreed that video games give more negative than positive effects to our society if we didn’t use it wisely.

KALA