Video Games
Over the past 30 years the development within the video games market has seen a phenomenal amount of progress. As a component of the media industry it has grown from a minor aspect into a colossus in a relatively short space of time. The massive progress in games technology is a consequence of the rapid improvement in the capacity of games consoles and devices to deliver high level of experience on to the screen of the user. Although there is a section of the adult community that play video games the vast majority of those who participate in this type of entertainment are children. There has been much debate about the impact of games played by children and potential positive and negative effects that gaming has on young people. Many of the games that have been developed use an interactive format that can improve the user’s levels of social skills. There are other games that have been specifically designed to enhance mental agility. These are deemed by many to have a positive impact. There are also many other games that focus on negative elements of human behavior and explore darker themes like violence and death. It is believed that these types of games can have a negative impact on younger people that are exposed to this kind of content. There is a universal classification system for video games in place. It is designed to ensure that the games are only accessible by those for whom the games are suited. This system is not very effective and many children are able to get access to games that have unsuitable content. “For the child or adolescent access to what might be considered restricted materials (adult rated) is much easier via both legal and “illegal” outlets.” (Dill 44) This paper will examine some of the key issues in relation to video games and children. The content of this discourse will illustrate that there is both a positive and negative aspect to the use of video games by children.
The statistics illustrate the level of social permeation that the video games industry has achieved. In the USA it is estimated that 87% of people aged 8-17 play participate in some form of video game activity. The average hours of consumption for those individuals has also escalated during the past three decades and for 13 year olds in the USA boys are spending approximately 23 hours per week. For girls the figure is less with estimates at around 13 hours (Burgess et al 377). When compared against other healthy activities like the participation in sports these figures are staggeringly high. However when compared with similar formats of activity like watching television the timings are broadly similar. In fact those that record higher amounts of time spent on video games actually spend less time watching television. This factor would indicate that video gaming is replacing television rather than being done as an additional sedentary activity.
One major factor in the increase in games popularity is the interactive aspect of game play. This is an element which allows players to play against ‘live’ opponents, or in some cases to join with others and play together as a team. For children who play games in this format there are a wide variety of social skills that they develop. As games platforms have developed and restructured it is clear that there are many positive benefits overall. One historic criticism of gaming was the fact that those involved were restricted to sitting in front of a screen and as a result deprived of physical activity by this process. The proliferation of hand held devices has allowed many gamers remain mobile while they play. Many console based game devices have incorporated motion into the gaming experience and some have developed and wide range of sporting, dancing and other highly exacting physical exercise routines, into their gaming catalogues.
Another positive feature in gaming is to be found in the level of intelligence required to play with most games being devised around a core principle of mental agility. Within the range of titles available there are many that pose complex problem solving challenges designed to engage the users by presenting them with obstacles that must be addressed with thinking skills and deft eye-hand coordination. Almost every aspect within video game use requires literacy and numeracy capacity. Game walk-through’s and explanations are delivered in text on screen and score cards will require basic numerate competence. In the process of play all of these skills are developed, and as a result this is beneficial for physical and mental development.
The argument has also frequently been made that gaming is anti-social and that those involved lock themselves away from society and lose the ability to interact with other people. This feature in turn has fuelled speculation that video gaming leads to violent behavior. In his article in science daily cites the authority Patrick Kierkegaard of the University of Essex’ view that game play actually lowers the mount of aggressive behavior, “The effect seems to be the exact opposite and one might argue that video game usage has reduced real violence.” (1) Statistics demonstrate that this is not the case with 60% of people who play games do so with friends or family. Most game consoles are devised to operate with a multi-user interface and can adopt several games controllers and display the performance of a range of users simultaneously on a screen. This aspect allows players to interact which each other and quite often enhances the experience far beyond that of the game environment on its own. Games platforms have also uniformly adopted the world wide web into the technology and many games allow users to join with other players from around the world. This feature can extend the players capacity for multicultural understanding and give them experiences that they would not have it they did not participate in video game play.
There are also many negative aspects to game play and many of these relate to the content within the games environments. In order to sell their products developers have worked to make the experience more thrilling than anything that has been created by competitors and in some cases this compromises the level of decency involved. Many feature realistic imitations of fighting, shooting, and a wide range of other violent experiences. It has been proven that, for children who are susceptible to influence, this experience can prompt them to carry out similar activity in the real world. (Carll 21) In their detailed analysis on the concept of the influence of violent games Eric Uhlmanna and Jane Swanson identify the influence of these types of games “participants who had played the bloody and violent video game Doom for 10 min subsequently associated the self more with aggressive traits.” (44). It is clear from this study that exposure to violence can have an impact on the self-perception of those involved. For players that have a pre-disposed propensity for aggression the experience in violent game play can heighten the potential for activating this behavior.
A negative aspect of video games that must also be considered is the impact that long term video game play has on how children respond to mental stimuli. The majority of games are designed around short term tasks that require seconds to accomplish. With a high frequency of exposure to gaming this type of thought process can have an impact on how the young people involved think. It has been reasonably argued that those that play games have a much shorter attention span and a lower capacity to perform well on extended tasks. It has also been proven that educational performance of gamers tends to be lower than those that do not play. In their detailed report on this topic Burgess, Stermer and Burgess clearly identified the trait of underperformance in gamers (386). This can be attributed to a displacement process where those
that play games become so immersed in this pastime that they ignore the requirements of their studies, which has an overall negative impact on their attainment.
It is clear from the arguments presented by many authorities that there are both positive and negative aspects to video game play for children. In addition to the fact that they offer a high level of recreational experience there are many games that have offer players a social environment which encourages learning a development. There are also, unfortunately, many titles that have inappropriate content that can act as a negative influence on the lives of impressionable children, who may go on to act on the violence they experience in the game environment. In order to improve the balance it is important for the media companies involved in game production to focus on the development of titles that will give the gamers an overall positive experience.
Works Cited :
Burgess, Stephen R., Stephen Paul Stermer, and Melinda C.R. Burgess. Video Game Playing and Academic Performance in College Students College Student Journal 46.2 (2012): 376-387. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Mar. 2013.
Carll, Elizabeth K. "Violent Video Games and Aggressive Behavior in Children Are Linked." Violence. Ed. Louise Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Print.
Dill Karen E. The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology New York: Oxford University Press 2013. Print.
Eric Uhlmanna , Jane Swanson“Exposure to violent video games increases automatic aggressiveness” Journal of Adolescence 27 (2004) 41–52. Print
Inderscience Publishers. "Could Violent Video Games Reduce Rather Than Increase Violence?."ScienceDaily, 15 May 2008. Web. Retrieved 13 Dec. 2013. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080514213432.htm
