Effects of Video Games - Essay Example

Video games are electronic games involving interaction between humans and a user interface for the generation of visual feedback through a video device (Lee, 1). According to Lee (2), video games can play a monumental role in the process of learning and literacy through enhancing the development of new ways of thinking and writing enhanced by the engagement of different facts of the brain and other body parts in playing video games. Gunter (8) relays divergent views on the effects o video games and children including the benefits and their impacts on children owing to the high involvement and interaction it gives the gamers. From the two types of research by Gunter and Lee, differing views and standpoints exist on the benefits and disadvantages of video games, and it is with this in mind that this study aims at summarizing a speech by Craig Anderson on the Pro-social and antisocial effects of Video Games.  

Craig Anderson is a distinguished professor, a fan of hard rock and violent movies, an athlete and a coach, a scientist, and a gamer since 1979. Craig starts by relating inaccurate hype in the public domain to create a clear guideline on the way forward. An inaccurate hype stated is that video games will be censored if they are found to be harmful, which he says video games will never be censored in the U.S. with the exception of pornography. The second inaccurate hype is that he has pushed for video game censorship to which he says he has produced summaries of scientific findings on the effect of video games on children.    

            Craig analyzes the effects o video games using three main points in his speech:

1. Video games are powerful socialization tools

Craig believes that video games are powerful socialization tools because video games use basic principles of learning in their development and interaction between the users and interface. The other reason he gives is that video games use basic motivation principles; hence, socialization tools. The content of the video affects the learning of the game users is the other point given supporting the assertion. 

2. Video games affect gamers in both positive and negative ways

Craig enumerates different ways through which video games affect gamers including the development of cognitive processes and skills created from fast-paced video games including eye-hand coordination and says it may result in worsening of attention through ADD, proactive cognitive control, and ADHD. The content of video games affects the gamer in terms of health, education, and violence. Video games may also result in desensitization and violent behavior of the gamers, aggressive attitudes, affect their beliefs on violence, addiction to video games and the internet, and may result in poor school performance. There are other extreme unsubstantiated effects of video games, both positive and negative, made that are not true including that video games improve attention, violent games cause school shootings, only bad studies find harmful effects, and pornography reduces sex crimes.

3. Effects on players depend on content, structure, context, and displacement

The impact of video games depends on the content of video games either violent or nonviolent, neutral, E-rated, and other contents, the structure of video games in terms of pace, reactive, and timing, and the context of the game. The context is in terms of playing the games alone or with others where lone gamers may become antisocial while when games are played together increase cohesion and socialization. The other factor determining the effects of video games is displacement where if video games use a lot of time the gamer may lack time for study leading to a negative impact on performance.  

To analyze the effects of video games, different media violence methods are used including experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal research. The choice of the research method on media violence is dependent on strengths and weaknesses, consistency, and plausible alternatives to select the most appropriate. It is evident that video games have both positive and negative effects on gamers, but this effect depends on the content, structure, context, and displacement owing to the high influence it has on thinking and interaction.