Video Games and Development of Morality - Essay Example

Over these years, the media has reported umpteen numbers of crimes where children are reportedly encouraged by video games. This work aims to argue that by allowing more room for more morally independent decision-making and by effectively incorporating the element of social reward, it is possible to utilize video games to enable children to make moral decisions in various contexts and also to make them aware about the implications of both moral and immoral decisions. The first point this work will address is the fact that video games are considerably different from other art forms in the fact that it is highly interactive. The second main point to be elaborated on is the role of social reward, social conformity, and social learning in making decisions in real society. The last point will elaborate on how to incorporate these elements in video games to make children aware of morality and its implications through video games.

This topic is highly relevant in the present situation where social thinkers, police forces, and parents are busy, blindly accusing video games of the fall in mortality among children. This research will describe how video games are close to real life and different from other forms of art. In addition, the work will show how this interactive nature of video games can be utilized to develop moral thinking instead of destroying the same. Moreover, the study can make the reader aware of the various elements which influence decision-making in real life. This is difficult research to accomplish because it needs to compile information from various subject areas, ranging from the gaming industry, decision-making, development of morality, social reward, social conformity, and social learning.

From a reading of various scholarly articles on the subject, it becomes evident that scholars have already started accepting video games as different from other forms of art, and a few have claimed that video games can be utilized to teach moral decision-making. However, television and newspapers report video game-motivated crimes on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Thus, for the general public, video games can do no good in the character formation and decision-making capabilities of children when morality and ethics are concerned. Therefore, this research will help prove that video games can be as effective as real life in teaching morality.

Unlike the previous paper, this paper will depend on a higher number of scholarly journals as sources. The research process will start with databases like jstor and ProQuest, using keywords like computer games, morality, decision-making, social reward, social learning, and social conformity. It will be followed by a thorough literature review to identify the points both in favor of and against the argument. This work mainly requires scholarly articles on the subject areas mentioned above for its successful completion. In addition, an effort will be made to avoid using Wikipedia, various blogs, and poor-quality websites as data sources. Moreover, utmost care will be taken to cite all the sources appropriately. Read More