It was a Saturday night and my family and I were invited to my little cousin's house. I got ready around 6:30 and we left around 7:00. Once we get there I greet all my relatives to go upstairs to my cousin's room. My cousin was sitting there playing his brand new Xbox One. We played for a few hours and then I decided to go downstairs and eat. Once I am done eating I go back upstairs to see my cousin arguing with my aunt. When I ask what happened my aunt says how the Xbox is “frying” his brain and how he has been acting differently because of it. She also stated that video games were destroying his brain and making him “stupid.” As someone who is a video game enthusiast, I was offended when she said that. A couple hours later we leave the party but what she said stayed with me for a long time. Video game addiction is a big problem but it is not the fault of the video game but the person for abusing the video game. Many adults such as my aunt believe that video games are making their children this way. Some violent video games can show some graphic content but there is a warning on the box. On the other hand, video games do have positive features such as teaching kids basic math and English, puzzles and keeping children busy. I believe that video games have way more positive effects than negative effects on children and parents like to blame video games for their kids' shortcomings because they do not want to admit they are bad at parenting. Video games cause growth in the mind of young children by challenging them into doing complicated tasks and learning to repeat such tasks. Even learning the controls of a game is very complicated and requires a lot of skill. On the other hand, there are some violent video games that show sex, killing, drugs, and other very mature scenes. These video games can teach kids things that they are not supposed to know until they are way older. Violent video games can also influence kids into doing violent things and using bad language. These games fall under the mature category and have a warning, which means it would be the parents' fault if a child has one of these games. In addition, I interviewed a fellow video game enthusiast by the name of Michael Siemens and he stated that his parents let him play Mature games at a young age. I have known Michael for eight years and he has never used profane language or violence. I believe that different people have different reactions to video games and it is a common stereotype that all games make children less intelligent. Michael told me that his favorite game, in fact, is a game called City Skylines which is a city building game. One must manage a city and use professionalism to complete tasks in the game. Video games such as this teach kids how to manage stuff such as time and money. Video games reinforce problem-solving skills by creating situations which most likely would never happen. These situations get one thinking and exercise the brain into thinking faster and becoming a quick thinker. Some also argue that video games make people lazy but that is not the case. Video games can be addicting due to the fake reality it creates. It sometimes is good to have a break from the real world but many users of video games abuse that. It is not the video games fault that people abuse them but the person who abuses the consoles fault. I am personally very knowledgeable in this field. I got my first video game when I was five years old. My dad got me a Nintendo DS and it was the coolest thing in the world. Now, I have multiple consoles and I get mostly every game that comes out. During the years I was in middle school I was addicted to video games and would play it every day when I came from school. I learned it the hard way that an excess of video game playing can hurt your grade and social life. On the other hand, I made many friends through video games and I am very good at puzzles and problem solving due to the repeated exposure to using that skill. A major skill I learned from video games is how to build a computer because I wanted a gaming PC. I wrote this paper because I enjoy playing video games and I personally wanted to know the benefits and the disadvantages. I decided to do this based off a joke one of my friends said. I was going to make my project about cloning but one day when we were writing chapter one my teacher came up to me and asked if I was truly passionate about cloning. My friend sitting next to me blurted that I was passionate about video games and that's how I got the idea to do it about the effect of video games. I used many academic sources such as a few books and studies that explained the effects of video games on the brain. On the other hand, I used some Reddit posts and blogs to also find information about my topic. There are some points I left out of my project due to the lack of time. I did not talk as much as I would have liked to about the sports genre and how it could influence children to play sports. I also did not answer the question, Do video games affect one's social life? I used personal information to answer that question but I do not know how other people's social lives are affected by this. The biggest struggle in writing this paper was addressing the negative points of video games. As someone who plays video games daily, I was very unhappy to hear some of the disadvantages. I see it as a hobby but in my research, I learned that some people view it as a way of life. I learned that a common stereotype for video gamers was to be fat and have no friends but personally I know that is not true. My successes were that I realized people who play video games are better at problem solving and puzzles than people who do not play. Video games overall have positive effects if one learns to control their time.
Video games have many positive effects on people and help people grow mentally. Video games teach life-changing skills that help in the real world. Video games such as Portal 2 teach how to problem solve by giving one a very complicated 3D puzzle that you must get into. There are many factors to take into account in that game and it requires a lot of trial and error which helps with patients. James argues that many designers face the problem of making games too easy which in turn causes fewer people to buy the game. He talks about how games that are semi-challenging are usually the most bought due to people not wanting to waste too much of their time but at the same time people still want to have fun. People like the challenge and like to challenge themselves.
School teaches us a lot about problem-solving and the older you become the more complicated games you play. Usually, teens play Strategy games because it requires patience and competence something a 6th grader does not have. Younger children usually like action games because they want an immediate reaction and don't like to wait. Video games teach children how to complete basic math and problem-solving problems and also help with motor skills. Video games exercise the brain into becoming better and practicing specific hand-eye skills. Video games also help with reaction time and helping people do things quickly and accurately. In the book “How Computer Games Help Children Learn” by David Shaffer explains how video games teach basic skills that can guarantee at least a low-income job. He also explains how video games teach children patience and how to deal with things in the real world. Video games such as online games teach children how to deal with unreasonable people. These skills are vital in the real world because there are many people that only want to get a negative reaction and be bothersome.
Video games are imperative in a person's life because of how many skills it teaches one. Learning how to deal with toxic (unreasonable people) helps you keep your calm and ride out a situation. Hand-eye coordination and reaction time help with driving, operating other machinery and sports. One can even learn to play a sport based off a video game by learning the rules and strategy. Many games are complicated to make the user have to exercise trial and error and teach patience to the user by having unbeatable challenges. It teaches how to complete missions in a certain amount of time which helps complete assignments in school quicker due to less stress. It exercises one's brain into being less stressed in a high stake and timed situation due to repeated exposure from video games. Games such as Destiny help one learn to talk and deal with others to find raid teams. It also helps in communication because there are a lot of factors and each person has their own job. It is a puzzle game and requires one to do research before going into a raid. One must be able to allocate time and helps manage your time throughout the day. Even though many people do in fact make time for video games by limiting other things in their life, there are some people that play on a schedule and complete all other tasks in their schedule before playing. Many argue video games make children lazy and waste children's time but it does the opposite. They are doing a complicated task and some people actually finish their school works faster so they can play video games which do the opposite of procrastination. To conclude, Video games have many positive effects and really help one grow mentally and physically.
A common stereotype for video games is they are too violent and it teaches human beings how to kill. Many fun and popular video games are violent because that's what people want to play. Video games such as Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed have a lot of killing and violence in those games and consequently, they are the most bought games. Many kids around ten years old to nineteen years old play games such as these and older and younger kids usually play sports or adventure games. The article, “Exposure of Violent Video Games to Children and Public Policy Implications,” by Joel Collier explains how video games are purposely making themselves more violent and realistic in order to get more sales. The more the video game is violent and bloody the more people buy them. Younger children think these video games are cool and parents usually don't even see the rating because the kids don't inform them. Also, sellers of video games don't inform parents because they want the money and would not want to lose business. All video games must state the rating of the game on the box but many sellers do not advertise this because they do not want to lose money.
Video games also cause children to become antisocial and aggravated. Playing video games for long periods of time without any real-world contact makes one mentally unstable. Humans are the most social animals in existence and rely on one another. Breaking this norm will cause unforeseen mental disabilities in the future and will cause one to become abnormal. The article, “Video Games and Adolescent Fighting” by Michael Ward talks about how video games cause anti-social activities in children and it also causes children to get violent. He says that video games make children angry which in turn causes them to commit violent actions. When a someone loses in a video game it causes them to get angry with themselves which in turn affects their surroundings.
Video Games do in fact cause some sort of a violent reaction in children. This reaction is not as prominent in young adults and adults but children and teens get very aggravated in video games. Usually when a teen or child plays a video game and loses they use a lot of profanity and some even have the nerve of insulting the other team on messages. Many of these children are not looked after while playing video games and learn these negative habits tend to stay with them until they are adults. Habits such as cussing and getting upset about losing tend to carry on and can impact one's future by ruining one's attitude. Many children who play violent video games also get into more fights. Violent video games have a lot of killing and can teach children how to kill without no remorse or consequence. Many games such as GTA teach children how killing does not have consequences and they even reward a player for killing. They don't go into details about how one's family is affected when a loved one has died and all the friends and family that will be left without the person who was killed. Video games don't go into depth about these topics and don't teach children that their consequences have actions. On the other hand, RPQ games show people who actions have consequences by creating a series of events and if there is a negative action a negative event will follow. Many games also reward players for not killing such as Undertail. Overall, video games don't necessarily make one violent but they are more of a catalyst to some and a hobby for others.
It was a Friday afternoon and school just got out. My friend Michael and I were planning to meet at In and Out for our weekly lunch. I asked Michael in advance if I can interview him for my topic in Senior Project and he accepted. We each drove our own cars to In and Out. We walked in and ordered. We both ordered a triple-triple cheeseburger plain with fries. Once we got our food and sat down we ate and said nothing. After we were done the interview began. Three questions in, we decided to wash our hands. Seven questions in, we decide to each get a milkshake. When we are done with the interview I learned a lot about how Michael thought of video games. He thought of video games as a tool rather than a hobby. He told me however since he was a kid his parents encouraged him to play video games in his free time because they did not want him to get bored and do incompetent things. Michael also explained how he doesn't believe mature games make people violent. Michael has been playing mature games ever since he was eleven when his father bought him Call of Duty Black Ops for his birthday. As one of Michael’s friends, I can state that he has never been violent and does not use profanity often and does not become aggressive when he loses. Michael explains how his parents never limited him from doing things in video games and he learned how to moderate himself and how to act wisely. Michael explains how he got his Xbox when he was fairly young and how he used to abuse it and spend large portions of his time on it until his grades got bad. He explains how he moderates himself and gets all his work done before he even begins to play. He also explains how he trained himself to sleep at 10 P.M. so he can get eight hours of sleep to be able to go through the next day. Michael also explains how he became good at speaking to people through video games. He explains how he likes to play a lot of roleplay games which involve dealing with people and sometimes compromising. He also tells me how he has made a lot of friends through video games. People who play video games are known to be considered anti-social but did anyone ever consider that people who play video games have their own community and their own friends. He also argues that video games help kids and teens deal with stressful times in their life. He explained how in 9th grade his classes begin to get very hard and all the stress was making him depressed. He then went on to explain how every day he would get on Xbox and play it with his friends and they would discuss their feeling and problems and talk it out. To conclude, I learned a lot of new and positive perspectives about video games from Michael and I look forward to playing more video games with him later today.
Video games teach user many real-world skills and have a positive net improvement on one's life. Video games help one with hand-eye coordination and overall help one with problem-solving. Video games stimulate one's minds by having simulations one can play through in order for one to get good at it. Many pilots use a simulator to practice and a flight simulator falls under the video game category. In the article, “What Life Skills Can Video Games Teach Kids,” by Natalie Kilgore, explains how video games such as Madden teach kids how to play football and how it brings kids to be interested in the sport. She also talks about how games such as portal 2 teach kids how to problem solve and how to use the trial and error method to improve education. The author also explains how she believes puzzles are a fundamental part of human growth and how these puzzles in video games stimulate children to be better at math and have better problem-solving skills and also teaching to never give up and try all the options.
Video games also help with training techniques. As said in the last paragraph pilots use video games to learn to fly but doctors and dentist also use video games to do mock surgeries. They practice this way in order to not have casualties or the stress of actually doing it but learning how to do it a the same time. The article, “Skills Development as a Benefit of Playing Video Games,” explains how units such as the Wii fit are used for training and how video games, in general, are used for therapy. The Wii fit is a device in which you must stand on to activate and play. There are many games which require one to get up and move around for one to complete. Video games also help one's reading ability due to the fast pace cutscenes in which the player reads and hears words very quickly which helps in communication. The author also explains how video games calm one's body down and help one forget about some stresses in life while one is on there. Overall the author states that video games are healthy for one mental and physical being and are a big part of adolescents lives.
Video games teach vital skills to adolescents and adults alike. Video games teach one how to be patient and follow directions. Video games also teach how to complete objectives and use all of your resources. You may at any point look up a video on how to complete an objective. There are many tutorials on how to complete difficult tasks and this helps one in learning how to trust sources. Another major thing video games teach is communication. In games such as Destiny, you must find a fireteam of six on forums and then complete a raid. Raids require a lot of communication and one must have a mic. In raids, one must study beforehand what to do and you must watch a video on how to do that raid or you will be kicked. People are usually mean and do not have the patience to teach a new player how to do things. Raids require a lot of planning and people must communicate and have the right setup. Every person has a job that they must complete for the raid. The raids are very difficult and teams with better communication do better than teams that have high skill and no communication. Raids in destiny require a lot of communication, planning, speaking ability, and some sort of skill ability. Other video games such as Fortnite do not require that much communication or planning because it just requires skill. Skill is obtained by playing a game for a long period of time and learning tactics and strategies on how to do things in the game. To become very good at a game one must study the game and find the dynamics of a game in order to succeed and get better at the game. Many people believe video games make people brains slow and cause them to become incompetent but they don't realize that even learning a new video game takes a lot of brainpower and skill.
Video games are known to be making children and adolescents lazy and overweight every since video games were first created. Video games cause kids to stay at home and not be active due to its addictive nature. Some video games such as computers games cause kids to sit down on chairs for long periods of time and play. On the other hand, games such as Xbox Kinect and Wii Fit require people to get up and move for the games. Wii Fit and Xbox Kinect are known for helping people lose weight and have fun. In the debate titled, “Do video games make kids lazy,” hosted by debate.org, one side argues video games cause diseases such as heart disease and obesity in children while the other side argues that video games don't cause these diseases but the person's ability to go and exercise causes diseases. The con side states that video games cause children to become addicted which causes them to go outside less and do less schoolwork. The pro side argues that there are video games such as the Wii Fit and Xbox Kinect that cause children to move and workout while playing video games. They also blame the parents of the children who have video game problems by stating they can take away video games and limit their playing time. People cannot just blame video games for making themselves and children lazy, they need to blame themselves and limit or even take away video games if the child cannot control and handle himself.
Video games often relax one's mind which causes the mind to not want to stop playing and ultimately leading to a giant waste of time. Video games cause one to stop thinking about stressful things and experience a simulation. In the article, “Do Video Games Make You Lazy,” by the website Videogamethings.com it explains how video games cause ones brain to relax which causes more work output after one has finished playing. The author explains how video games kill a lot of time but it doesn't necessarily make one lazy. The author also explains how people escape reality by playing video games and how that is what causes the lazy misconception. Video games are very hard to stop playing because of the pleasure of being in a different world and doing everything correctly. Willpower to stop playing video games is often an art itself due to the highly addictive way they are designed.
Video games are not the main factor that causes laziness. People aren't lazy who play video games due to the skill and work factor in it. Video games require one to think and complete mission or use basic controls in order to play. Video games do not necessarily cause laziness but they can cause people to become overweight due t extended amounts of sitting down. Television actually causes laziness because one does not even have to think about Television due to a picture being blasted in your face. At least video games require some sort of work and thinking in order to complete. The games such as Wii Fit and Xbox Kinect are used for weight loss and not making kids less lazy. There are video games such as RPG (Role Playing Games) and Strategy that require a lot of thinking. One game such as Civilization causes one to think about every single action and think about consequences. Attacking a certain city-state might cause a bigger nation to back them up and you must consider all your options before completing an action. In this game your actions always have consequences and one must think about what to upgrade, where to put troops, etc. RPG video games such as Fallout and Skyrim also require a lot of thinking. There are many different endings and ways of beating both of these games and one must think about consequences for every action they complete. If you kill the wrong person or do the wrong thing it will affect you for the rest of the game. Overall video games do not cause laziness and overweight children directly but they are time killers and they are addictive.
To conclude, the effects of video games are mainly good and the few negative effects are over exaggerated. Video games do not cause people to get aggravated, lazy, or overweight but they are in fact addicting. Video games teach us valuable lessons about life and how to do technical stuff in the real world. Video games make stimulate the brain by created unrealistic situations for the brain to thrive in. It is a way for people to escape the world, which is good sometimes. Other Times people cannot get off video games and through that, they become lazy and overweight. This is not the video games fault but the fault of the player who refuses to get off the video game. Video games bribe kids into learning and solving puzzles. They cause kids to learn without them knowing that they are learning. Video games can teach basic English and Math through fun games. They also kill time during flights and road trips. It distracts one’s brain for becoming bored through fast-paced simulation. For children, this causes less complaining and bickering during trips and other boring situations. Parents biggest problem with video games is that they are too violent and cause children to get aggravated. This is not the case, violent video games have labels that state that they are for the age seventeen and up. This means that if a child plays a violent video game and decides to mimic that game and does something bad, it is the parent fault for letting that child play the game due to the game warning. Video games are not the reason for children becoming lazy and violent it is the parents' fault. Parents use the very few negative effects of video games as a safety cushion so they do not have to face the fact that they are bad parents and can't control their children. Overall, video games have many positive effects on people and the common stereotypes are not true and excuse for bad parents.