As Well As Entertainment, Videogames Can Now Be Used For Exercise, Education And Training For Many Types Of Jobs. Essays Examples

People who Blame Violence and Lack of Social Contact on Videogames are Simply Part of an Older Generation who do not Use or Understand Them

Introduction and Thesis Statements

Video games are becoming popular and popular day after day and it is not a mistake if the essay says that today 90 percent of American children and teens play videogames and they are typically busy with playing video games during two hours every day. We often can see ads on TV programs promoting a new video game so children often ask their parents to buy them and spend dozen of hours playing games. Many parents’ attitude to video games is negative so they accept these activities as time-wasters, and worse, some experts spread the idea that such games corrupt brains and see the reasons of extreme anti-social behavior in video games.
But not everything they claim is true; in this case video games would have already been banned by responsible organizations. Many scientists and psychologists find that the purpose of the sorted video games is to make children smarter and they can teach kids high level of thinking. Because every exercise we do is printed in our brain and video games can change our brain in positive way.
The increasing popularity of video games has created a debate among parents, education experts, scientists, researchers, video game producers and policy makers concerning advantages and disadvantages, harmful and helpful effects on children.
Many people believe that the youth should be prevented from playing videogames claiming that they have negative effects on people’s mental health and social behavior. Negative opinions basically can be met among older generation which suggests the existence of the link between the exposure violent videogames and negative behavior of young people. Strasburger (2012) and Chinan Lui (2014) prove in their researches that heavy gaming has negative consequences such as high level of depression and even high school dropout moreover regular gaming encourages them to commit violent actions even crimes. However they don’t refuse positive effects, in addition, many scientists and researchers claim positive effects of videogames in people’s behavior.
Douglas A. Gentile (2011), Mark Griffiths (2002) and Paul J. C. Adachi1 and Teena Willoughby (2012) support that videogames effect positively in academic performance, improve thinking and visual skills and abilities and help in mental development, and raise players’ self-esteem. Moreover Mark Griffiths (2002) highlights that videogames can be used in educational purpose and “videogames can assist children in setting goals, ensuring goal rehearsal, providing feedback, reinforcement, and maintaining records of behavioral change”. It is believed by them that videogames have potentials as next-generation tools because children are not the same as the previous generation was. The gap between generations has always been existed so it is the reason that older people cannot accept video gaming as necessary tool for children in their development.

Purpose of this Essay

The main purpose of this essay is to analyze negative and positive effects of videogames in education process, society and how they influence on people’s mental health by reviewing academic sources. This requires finding out the sort of videogames because positive things have positive effects and negative things can corrupt people. Moreover the essay sets questions which will be answered in the process of the research. Based on the findings the essay will provide a precise conclusion.

Questions which will be answered in Conclusion Part

Can video games provide interactivity which will stimulate learning in educational process? Do video games prepare children for the digital world in future?
Is it effective way of overcoming technophobia which is definite condition among older generation? May video games shorten a social gap between generations?

Do video games let people to measure performance of different tasks and teach the ability of self-estimation?

Do all video games spoil children’s behavior and lead to violent actions?
Are there more positive effects or negative effects of video games on mental health of people?
Finding answers to these questions will explain the effect of video games on different fields of people’s life. It will be explained that video games could be helpful for older people too as it is believed their attitude is so negative for the reason that they don’t pay video games or don’t know them but just see how the youth play them.

Physical/Mental Health Effect of Playing Video games

Video games give brain real workout so they certainly have effects on it, especially the games such as The Incredible Machine, Angry Birds or Cut the Rope make children think logically and encourage to find creative solutions for the puzzles or tasks (raisesmartkid.com). Many video games train hand-eye coordination even shooting games have positive effects because the character has to run and at same time to shoot. The character has to coordinate the interpretation of his brain and reaction with his movements of fingers. A famous game Call of Duty may increase the spirit of love for Motherland and form the senses of a protector in children’s heard.
Mark Griffiths (2002) think that video games can help people of special need groups to develop social skills moreover he tells the story of one boy whose name is Demarest who suffers from autism. By playing videogames he can calm and improve language skills, follow directions or understand prepositions, answer questions; his math skills also has been improved as he counts his own scores; basic reading skills were also taught by video games. Many doctors and scientists use video games to help disabled children (Horn, 1991)
Aggressive behavior and depression is the result of spending the whole days playing video games and playing violent games not educative. All of us agree that sport is absolutely useful activity for a healthy man but if a man do sport nonstop the outcomes also will be bad. So the amount of hours spent on video games shouldn’t be considered as their harmful effect because it is up to a person how to use video games.

The Effect of Video Games on Educational Process

Kurt Squire (2002) says that emotions are balanced in video games and claims that there is “no relationship between video game usage and social maladjustment”. ESA (Entertainment Software Association) reports that students’ performance in math test increased to 3.74 points after playing DimensionM over an 18-week. In addition it tells many successful stories where video games made its contribution in learning progress.
Video games are, perhaps, the best way to teach time management as many games have time limitations. The player has to complete the task within given time. During games the players learn to manage limited resources and make decisions on their best usage, it is seen in games SimCity, Age of Empires, and Railroad Tycoon. Basically they develop quick thinking and train brain to make quick decisions. Karen E. Dill (2008) believes that video games are more powerful teachers on several levels and provide an excellent model for learning. Paul J. C. Adachi1 and Teena Willoughby (2012) states video games involve clearly defined rules, challenge, and complexity. He explains the effectiveness of video games in learning new skills, creating solutions for problems. All these will help the players in applying the skills in future life problems.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Video Games for the Society

Strasburger (2012) in his research Children, Adolescents, and the Media claims that video games have more negative effects than positive and in his table 1 he sets the results of his research which contains two lines; 1 - positive effects of video games and 2 – negative effects of violent game . But it is important to pay attention that the author is presenting negative effects of violent games. I want to mention that not all video games are violent; there are many other kind and friendly video games which are advised to play instead of violent ones. So parents should be selective when they buy a new video game for their kids. The negative effects of violent video games can be decreased by strong censorship. It is not necessary to forbid all video games because of one type of video games. The president of the Entertainment Software Association Palmer (2004) in his interview mentioned that “every researcher who’s come to this without a preconceived notion trying to prove that video games are harmful has looked at the literature and said that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that violent video games are harmful”.
Harmful or helpful effect of video games on social behavior of people definitely depends on the type of video game. If children and teens don’t play violent games they will not be addicted and commit crimes as some researchers explain. In contrast, children will be joined to play games in one site or place. Consequently it will develop their communication skills, group working and share the moments of victory with co-group mates.
Another helpful site of video game could be for older generation. It could be the most interactive way of coping technophobia for old people and the chance to become closer to their grandchildren. It would help to decrease the problems between young and old generations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, not all video games are violent games and they make their own contribution in children’s and teens’ development in education and social life. Moreover video games can be helpful for disabled people in learning basic math and reading skills. They are useful not only for disabled people but for ordinary people too in training brain and memory. Video games are social activities; even friends from different parts of the world can be cooperated via online games. Young generation is living in digital world so nothing will be as in days of our grandparents’ childhood. Globalization and development is offering people variety of choices in everything. What video games to play, how many hours to play are certainly important how they will influence on people’s health, mind, attitude and behavior. Totally video games have and positive and negative effect but it depends on the types of the games and their functions.

Reference

1. Entertainment Software Association. Games: Improving E Paul J. C. Adachi1 and Teena Willoughbyducation. Available at: http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Games_Improving_Education-11.4.pdf Accessed April 14, 2015
2. Chenan Lui, (2014.) Long Term Effects of Video and Computer Game Heavy Use on Health, Mental Health and Education Outcomes among Adolescents in the US. Urbana, Illinois. Dissertation. Available at: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/50742/Chennan_Liu.pdf?sequence=1 Accessed April 14, 2015
3. Victor C. Strasburger (2012). ‘Children, Adolescents, and the Media’. Pediatric Clinics of North America. June. Volume 59. Number 3. Available at: http://public.psych.iastate.edu/caa/abstracts/2010-2014/12pmag.pdf Accessed April 14, 2015
4. Shu-Fang Lin (2010). ‘Perceived Influence of Negative and Positive Video Game’. Journal of Media and Communication Students. Volume 2 (10) pp. 208-214. Available online http://www.academicjournals.org/jmcs ISSN 2141 – 2545 ©2010 Academic Journals Accessed April 14, 2015
5. Douglas A. Gentile (2011) ‘Child Development Perspectives. The Multiple Dimensions of Video Game Effects’. The Society for Research in Child Development. Vol.5 Number 2, 2011 p. 75-81. Available at: http://qedfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Multiple-Dimensions-of-Video-Game-Effects.pdf Accessed April 14, 2015
6. Mark Griffiths (2002). ‘The Educational Benefits of Videogames’. Education and Health. Vol. 20 No.3, 2002. Available at: http://website.education.wisc.edu/~kdsquire/tenure-files/39-squire-IJIS.pdf Accessed April 14, 2015
7. Paul J. C. Adachi1 and Teena Willoughby (2012). ‘Do Video Games Promote Positive Youth Development?’ Journal of Adolescent Research. 28(2) 155–165. Available at: file:///C:/Users/%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B6%D0%B0%D0%BD/Downloads/Adachi.Willoughby.JAR.2013.pdf Accessed April 15, 2015
8. Palmer, G. (2004). The video game revolution. Seattle, WA: KTCS Television
9. Horn, E., Jones, H.A. & Hamlett, C. (1991). An investigation of the feasibility of a video game system for developing scanning and selection skills. Journal for the Association for People With Severe Handicaps, 16, 108-115