The controversy on video games and whether they are harmful or helpful has been around for a while now. Firstly, a video game is a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or other display screen. Video games are often judged; some people may think video games are bad and affect children negatively because of the stereotypes of video games causing children to become lazy and violent. Even though, some of these stereotypes could true; video games are not as bad as the stereotypes make them to be. According to Jing Feng of the University of Toronto “How Video Games Benefit the Brain” video games improve children’s brain perception, attention, and spatial cognition. (3) Playing video …show more content…
Shooter games are considered action; most shooter games consist of fighting and shooting at enemies. Charles Choi and other researchers did an experiment on action video gamer versus non-gamers. In the experiment, the action video gamers played the action game Grand Theft Auto for five hours a week for one year. After playing the game, they gave the volunteers array of dots to look at and asked them to determine which direction the dots was going. Some dots were going in the same direction to make it easier or harder. The action gamers were able to determine which direction the dots were going faster than the non-gamers. The researchers did an experiment with noise to test their auditory decision. The action gamer also did better in the auditory experiment. In the experiment, the volunteers had to put on headphones and listen for a noise. The volunteers had to determine which ear they heard the noise in. After the experiment, they asked the non-gamers to play the action game for fifty hours and their decision-making skills …show more content…
Video games are therapeutic for children with chronic illnesses. According to the University of Utah, children that has been diagnosed with autism, depression, or Parkinson disease can improve their resilience, empowerment, and fighting spirit by playing video games. Video games, improve preschooler’s motor skills. You may think letting a four-year-old sit in front of the television for hours is wrong, but research shows that children who play interactive games have a better object control motor skills than children who do not play video games. Video games reduce stress and depression. Children are able to express their inner frustration and anger while playing video games. Video games also provide pain relief. According to the University of Washington, the Military Hospital did an experiment on soldiers recovering from their battlefield wounds. Some soldiers played the video game Snow World. The soldiers that played the video game required less pain medicine during recuperation because they relieved some of their pain by throwing
Video games are enjoyable for people and have good benefits for children who use their multiple skills to play and interact with others. In many parts of the world, the common video game is often seen by parents as something that is wasting their child's time or “rotting their brain”. It is a popular misconception that video games are bad for children. What parents do not know is the positive things about video games. Video games have a positive impact on people and help them learn things for experiences to come. People often do not understand that violent video games are not harmful to people because video games allow people to release their anger, video games decrease crime in youth, and because they allow people to be creative and test their
As video games become more and more popular, we will inevitably see an increase in amount of video games being produced. The growth in popularity of video games is facilitated by the creation of a website known as Twitch.com. This website allows gamers and content creators to stream themselves playing video games online and interact directly with a live audience via chat. This new platform makes gaming both more accessible and more acceptable. The social stigmas that accompany video games are diminishing; in fact there has been an increase in competitive electronic sports as well. Logically, the growing interest in video games encourages programmers to make more and more games. Melinda Burgess et al presents an interesting perspective about video games. She explores the prevalence of racial stereotypes and how their effects are detrimental to society as a whole. In Burgess’s essay, “Playing with Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games”, she provides fantastic commentary on how top selling video games show “overt racial stereotyping” (Lunsford et al 551) and negatively affect how we think. By providing statistics and data about the videogames that she is critiquing, she effectively shows that there is may be a correlation between video games and how we think and interact with the world around us.
According to several sources around 42% of the American population plays video games, and around 1.2 billion people worldwide play video games today. Gaming has become an increasingly more popular hobby since its creation. As such the medium has obviously attracted a multitude of different people and groups, all consisting of diverse backgrounds, body types, sexes, races, nationalities and the like. However, contrary to the numerous demographics video games have come to attract, it is very evident the vast majority of them do not seem to be marketed toward many of them via game characters, and their importance, if any, in a game. Video games show an overwhelming amount of white male characters, despite the many demographics they reach. Of the characters that are not white, or male, that are represented, are often represented poorly. For example, many black characters represented in video games are often characterized as vulgar, and violent. Women represented in games are often characterized as support characters, or objects of sexual desire. Considering forms of sexism, racism, and other such types of prejudices are still prominent in modern society, and these representations obviously do not help how people see these marginalized groups. Ultimately, these representations, or lack thereof, affect people in society in a number of ways, by perpetuating prejudice and harmful stereotypes.
“A new wave of research has found surprising advantages in an activity that many call a waste of time, if not an outright menace”(Paragraph 5). Some video games can be very helpful like math games and grammar games. Video games are considered a waste of time, but it can be very helpful in education and in many other ways. “Scientists have recently linked gaming with increased brain power, making better moral decisions and even physical fitness”(Paragraph 6) Video games are being proven to help people make better choices. On the other hand, they also have been linked with fitness and strength. This said, video games are improving daily life and
Within western societies, games are often common place. The average person will play a game to relieve boredom, stress, or be a part of a community as many games require multiple people in order to play. There are even games specifically designed for learning or refining hand eye coordination. As the need for mental, and at times even emotion, stimulation grew so did the variety of games. Games range from those you can play by simply speaking to those that require electronic game systems that could cost hundreds of dollars.
You can't recreate emotions that video games bring out of you. No matter the perspective, video games are always first-person. I have always believe video games can trigger amazing emotional appearances. When you are playing a videogame you are sucked into the world and the character becomes you. Everything that happens from fighting dragons, to falling in love you experience as that person. In hindsight, you won't think about it in that way but that's how it happened. When you start the game you shed your original identity and take on another. When I am playing a video game I am not thinking of what Daveion is feeling or if I am going to die if I take one more hit. I feel everything the character feels from horror from being chased or joy
From my understanding, the central message of this article is to help people understand that video games don’t play a major role in youth violence. My position as a member of the audience is neutral. I believe the author of this article was trying to reach a resistant audience. The reason why I concluded this, was because each subtitle is a negative statement about video games. The content below the subtitle then disproved the statement to be true. For example, one subtitle reads, “Children are the primary market for video games”, (Jenkins). A statistic from the passage beneath reads, “Already 62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older”, (Jenkins). The text used a logos appeal, I can tell because the
The article gave an array of effects video games have on the brain. There are different behaviors that can be associated with game players. It can range from improving cognitive skills to enhancing disorders. It can also be enrichment in school and with students. This is just an overview of the information
For years, the video game industry has catered almost exclusively to men and reinforced a heterosexual cis white male norm with regards to whom they portray as characters and which audiences they market toward. Walk into any toy store, and you’ll see most aisles clearly divided by gender: girls get dolls and dog collectibles while boys get racing tracks and action figures. Even toys that are marketed towards all children, like Legos, still reinforce this idea of binary gender separation: girls build princess castles, boys build space ships. Hoever, even though the products are exclusively marketed, all audiences are still targeted by the company as a whole. This is true for many different types of products, except for one huge, glaring exception: video games. While many other forms of media have mainstream activism to push their representation and inclusion along, video games aren’t often discussed in that kind of light beyond side blogs and dissertations.
The online cite tells us “Ferguson and Olson studied 377 American children, on average 13 years of age, from various ethnic groups who had clinically elevated attention deficit or depressive symptoms.” This tells us that people were in fact helped by the video games. People who used to be depressed used video games as a source of medication to also boost their mood. These children show us that these games can help your mood. Although some people may not agree with what the data tells us, Ferguson and Olson also say that sometimes the video games can not affect the person at all, and the violence being reported is linked with anger issues and anxiety over the video games. The same researchers also reviewed that it affected the kids with a purifying and cleansing effect to their minds. With that said, they do many studies on this topic. One including a test where the results show the kids had a relaxed effect with their vigorous and rude
Video games have been argued about for decades. Some people have argued that video games are linked to violence. However, new research shows that video games can be used for therapeutic purposes, exercise, stress relievers, positive interactive learning, hand eye coordination, and different types of patient treatment for people all around the world.
The constant raging argument between the people opposing videogames versus people who support them and use them on a constant basis. Each side has clinical studies conducted done but one stands out, they have more of a impact of young adults. Video games of all types have fundamental values including faster reaction times. These come from constant fast pace games that can affect your decisions in the real world. Although studies have been conducted showing video games increasing violence, it’s really dependent on the person’s background. The other fundamental value is about teaching about people about our global economy and current events going on. Videos not only provide a distraction from bad in the real world, it teaches about the real world.
Representation of Women in Video Games Gender exists in many aspects of an individual’s life, from family, to school, and peers. The presence of media plays a significant part in an individual’s socialization. The products of this system can have negative consequences if the media someone consumes carries negative stereotypes. For many oppressed groups, these stereotypes are damaging and can become a basis for their oppression.
Video games first started being introduced into the world around the 1970’s and since then have evolved and made an impact on the real life and online world. Throughout the years of video games making more and more of an impact in the entertainment industry, the question to weather they are a form of media still remains. Media is defined as “the main means of mass communication (television, radio, and newspapers) regarded collectively.” And depending where you’re coming from media can include the video gaming industry, film industry, tv industry and of course the news and marketing industries.
Video games are frowned upon by parents as time-wasters, and worse, some education experts think that these games corrupt the brain. Violent video games are easily blamed by the media and some experts as the reason why some young people become violent or commit extreme anti-social behavior. But many scientists and psychologists find that video games can actually have many benefits – the main one is making kids smart. Video games may actually teach kids high-level thinking skills that they will need in the future.