Video Games

           “Alex, have you finished your homework? If not, faster finish up your homework instead of sitting in front of the computer staring as if like there is gold in front of you.” This is mostly said by mothers. “Stay alive at all cost! Kill the bad guys! Kill monsters! It is too cute to be killed.” This is what I heard from gamers and what I read from the internet. By looking at those playing video games, they seem to be like extremely having fun. But are those games really harmless to those gamers? Most of the teenagers have been spending their precious time in front of computer. But do they know it have become a serious issue among them? Video games do have their advantages it depends the person’s point of view. In my point of view, I partially agree with playing video games.

            Some people think that violent in video games will affect the reality but some point out that most gamer live completely normal lives. “Most” does not represent “all”. The important part is that gamers do not have immediately imitated specific violent acts that found in the games. Playing games will not be affected in long-term negatively impact on the player’s view and behavior. Because of this, most parents should assume responsibility for evaluating video games and should prohibit teenagers from purchasing or download those that are especially violent.

            Playing games can affect the player’s psychological health. As early as 1983, Geoffrey and Elizabeth Loftus, in their book Mind at Play: The Psychology of Video Games, warned about the dangers of violent video games: “Although we can never be sure in any individual case, a substantial body of evidence indicates that viewing excessive violence on the screen is associated with aggression and violent behavior among children and teenagers.” Recently, studies have measured changes in behavior and emotional responses to video games, ranging from “assertiveness” (Journal of Child Study, qtd. in Boal, “Shooters”) and withdrawal (Jeanne Funk, qtd. in Boal, “One Step”) to “aggression, anger, and hostility” (A. Mehrabian and W. J. Wixen, qtd. in “Social Effects,” sec. 1).While Media scope, the publication of a non-profit research organization, concludes from its survey of research on video game playing that there are not sufficient studies, especially of current games, to make any definitive statements about the dangers of video-game use (“Social Effects”), parents should be more concerned and precisely because so few studies have been conducted.

            Besides violent content, video games have several advantages. Based on the article that I have read, video games can push children’s competence to the limit by forcing them to master certain ability to overcome the obstacles in level such as “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six”. This is one of the games that require a solid teamwork.The player acts as the leader of an anti terrorist squad consist of three to four members. At the beginning of the game, players can choose how to infiltrate the terrorist compound, either by planting an explosive on the door, using a fast rope from the rooftop or simply breaching into several doors to create a surprise assault. These options will ignite the sense of logical thinking and strategy formations in which formal education does not offer.

Video games are also the tool of social interactions without distinguish race. Friendships can be developed through playing video games and ultimately keeping them away from drug usage and violent activities. Most of the video games today have either multiplayer or online capabilities or even both. For example, player can made friends with people all around the world. The game focuses on eliminating the other team hence teamwork has a major role in succeeding the game. Personally, meeting lots of people online can develop English ability for whom that is not their mother tongue and so for social skills because for some people, starting a conversation with a stranger can be really tough. In general, video game is an astonishing tool to keep children entertained during leisure time.

Some people already know some of the advantages aspects of video games, but they still believe that the negatives will always overcome the positives one. The article “Don’t Shoot: Why Video Games Really Are Linked to Violence” by Amanda Schaffer from Slate.com stated “The connection between violent games and real violence is also fairly intuitive. In playing the games, kids are likely to become desensitised to gory images, which could make them less disturbing and perhaps easier to deal with in real life. When video games aren’t about violence, their capacity to teach can be a good thing. For patients suffering from arachnophobia, fear of flying, or post-traumatic stress disorder, therapists are beginning to use virtual realities as a desensitisation tool.” This evidence show that violent game can increase the violent thoughts, however this evidence can not apply for all because this test only conducted in certain areas without considering other aspects that can change the result. Violent games can expose children to have violent behavior but through playing games it would not be as effective as the ones in the television. Stars newspaper and others have filled the news with murder, rapist, war and others violence action that we can watch in the television. These two media are totally different because ones involved human acting and another one is computer generated characters. As mentioned by Dr. Kipling D. Williams PhD, one of the social psychological science faculties in Purdue University, children’s violent tendencies can be diverted towards violent video games rather than actually doing it in the real life.  

In short, video games have influences. So, we must take all the responsibility for the way we use video games.

Written by,

Shin Wei