GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS #9239 Zeus Cortes Aguila 0222 HIALEAH GARDENS HIGH SCHOOL US675 COMPONENT 3 TRANSCRIPT & REFLECTIVE PAPER Are video games harmful to society? 9239: Statement of originality Student declaration: I confirm that the enclosed material is all my own work. I have not copied or based my work on any samples or exemplars to which I have had access. Any work taken from another source has been appropriately referenced and acknowledged.
Transcript: Since the birth of the Nintendo and its predecessors. there has been millions of articles either criticizing this genre of entertainment or those that defend it. For the purpose of this presentation (and to make my standpoint a little clearer) let's call the supporters, Pac Man, and the opposers, Ghosts. Each one has platforms in which they attempt to rack up points and outscore the other. The Pac Man: They argue that it does not have a direct correlation with violence, enables social activity (although of a different type) and can be possibly used as an educational tool. The Ghosts: They claim that they cause aggression, addiction, and the deterioration of social behavior. So first let's dissect the Pac Man point. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has an article explaining much of the clouded areas in the controversy and does a great job proving a point. Though they may have vested interests towards supporting gaming being that they are a technology firm, so their ability to see might be ambiguous. The article quotes a psychologist named Jason Allaire and it says "People of all ages play video games. There is no longer a 'stereotype game player,' but instead a game player could be your grandparent, your boss, or even your professor, this argument further supports the claim when the ESA implies that if video games don t directly cause violence since everyone is attacking each other just because they played a game of Call Of Duty. The FBI has a stated that from 1995 2008 the crime rate had fallen by 49.3% meanwhile during that time period the sales of video games had quadrupled. This does not mean that video games decrease crime, it just means it has no justifiable connection. The Ghost s Game: Their game plan when it comes to out maneuver the Pac Man is to hit them where it hurts. Tracy Dietz in her article The Examination of Violence and Gender Roles in Video Games depicts the idea that video games often rewards players for simulating violence, and players exhibit aggression towards other players in the same game. An article from Ingrid Moller describes her research in the German adolescents states that violence in gaming teaches that violence is an effective problem solving technique. Grand Theft Childhood, a book by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olsen, points out that there is a direct correlation to violence through research. They re the co founders and director of Harvard Medical School and say that they have no vested interest in the topic. That claim might be put to question when noticing the research design and interpretation of their own data and the $1.5 million grant they acquired to conduct the research. They state that [They] found significant relationships between M rated game play and a broad range of aggressive or problem behaviors among middle school students.
In conclusion, the controversy surrounding the gaming industry is uncalled for. There are too many external factors that can also influence a person to establish video games are the direct cause. Games are meant to immerse someone in a new world and introduce them to a different community. It brings people together and quenches a human s taste for competition. Group Dynamic
Since the birth of Ms. Pac Man, Tetris, and Space Invaders; controversy has followed leveled up alongside the exponentially growing billion dollar industries. It seems as if the older generations are quick to point the finger at video games causing violence even when they have never laid their hands on a gaming console and avoid conducting the proper research. Furthermore, even when their attempts at proving the harmful effects of videos games to be true, they still end up failing. This could be allocated by the work of Morgan J. Tear and Mark Nielsen in their publication Failure To Demonstrate The Playing Violent Video Games Diminishes Prosocial Behavior This publications original intent was to bridge the lack of social behavior and video games, it suggested that games would cause the gamer to be less social and represent a dwindling social capability overtime. The researcher utilized a basic pen drop test. The candidates were exposed to ten minutes of diverse gameplay, where it be shooters, role playing, or social, then the conductor would simply drop a pen and observe the likelihood that the candidate would halt his game to collect the pen and return it to the conductor. This test would consider the act as an indicator of prosocial behavior. Although, this experiment proved to be unable to discover a valid link between prosocial behavior and video games it did not take into consideration the the different intensity levels across genres. An action packed military shooter like Battlefield 4 clearly displays a more vivid attention grabbing effect than an calm and serene role playing game like Runescape. A first person shooter cannot be paused mid game without causing the player to die, while a roleplaying game can be simply left alone without any penalties, therefore it would not be fair to
test the two as equals. This problem could also emerge when looking into any online multiplayer games, the lack of pausing limits the player to dedicate a session of time strictly to the game so regardless of violence or not the statistics would be similar whether the user is playing Call of Duty or a racing game like Forza. Personal Reflection The same could be said of any online game; it just happens that Call of Duty is violent, but the same problem and likely similar statistics would be shown from a player who is playing either. Research dedicated to expose the effects of violent videos lack strong connections to real life violence, there is a large gray area that multiple probabilities are not taken into account. Among the group of unbiased researcher investigating the phenomena, there is an overall consensus that the more studies must be conducted and there it no formidable links. There seems to be a conclusion the previous research had be extremely flawed or poorly regulated due to the massive amounts of holes and fabrication of facts. While researching the effects of anti social behavior and videos games, Dr. Porter, Guy states Studies conducted so far have not controlled completely for confounding variables, such as genetic predisposition, socioeconomic status, violence in the home, substance abuse and psychiatric disorders. This statement demonstrates the infinite number of variables that come into play when playing video games, maybe it s not the violence the causes introvertive behavior, but maybe the environment or upbringings.