Controversy about the Video Games - Essay Example

“Controversy about the Video Games” One of the most interesting cases of the socially controversial issue is a case of video games and their effect on a person’s identity and an individual life experience. Video games nowadays have a huge and loyal audience. A lot of new games appear every hour, and each day more and more of them take their place on the gaming market. Championships and contests attract gamers from all around the world. Video games successfully connected with movie and music industry and so the place of video games in the popular culture is very significant (Berger 20). Despite massive popularity of video games a lot of people think that video games are not just harmful free time activity but a huge social problem which must be dealt with. In following composition different aspects of the bad and good sides of video games will be presented and discussed. First aspect is the age of gamers. In childhood a person is more sensitive and receptive because a lot of things in this world seem strange and new for him or her. First of all most of the games need only one player and even when the game can be adapted for two or more partners it doesn’t really change the fact that while playing a game a person is interested only in game and the outside world does not exist for such a person. We build and maintain our individual experience in our intercommunication with other people. Live face-to-face speaking is the basis of communication between people. Here we smoothly cross to the problem of “escapism”. Addiction to video games as well as a lot of other problems lies in a need of a person to escape from reality and people do it instead of learning how to deal with real life. Escapism is a way in which person tries to substitute the real world in which this person lives with other world which matches him or her more but which is, unfortunately, unreal and exist only in imagination of such a person. So by playing a lot of video games a person (a child or teenager most often) estranges from real world and real liabilities and responsibilities. When such estrangement takes place with time person will with a lot of possibility start to behave in anti-social way and her or his communication skills will stay on a low level (Gee 133). Clearly speaking a person should have activities in which he or she participates alone but this activities must be limited by some time because we live in a world in which it is our duty to communicate and co-work with each other not only for our own sake but for the better of all people. Very significant is the negative effect on the memory caused by video games. Overall most popular and widely played games don’t need memory skills at all. It is very necessary for the memory to be trained and video games are not a good exercise and even more than that because for some people who have bad memory playing video games will only make it worse. Video games benumb our reception of outside world and the ability to see clearly and notice details which is similar to the ability of memorizing (Vorderer & Jennings 111). The next issue is impact of video games on reaction. There are a lot of games which involve reaction abilities. Clearly speaking this is one of the most necessary things for a gamer. But that doesn’t mean that video games help to improve our reaction. It depends on which kind of reaction we are talking about. Because the reaction of person on the irritants of the outside world becomes worse if this person is a gamer. Video games demand a lot of attention and most of player’s energy so often there is nothing left for the outside world. There are lot of different stories about gamers who continued to play after their house has been burned or robbed. A lot of the people even without headphones will most possibly not hear you when you talk to them during their time with Playstation or Xbox (Newman 2007). So in this case video games are attention eaters like TV which can attract our attention even if something not interesting for us is going on. Going further it is important to identify the influence of video games on the emotional stability of a person who spends time playing them. Emotional intellect is proven to be as important as general intellect and so people who learn how to control their emotions can communicate with others effectively. Our emotions answer to the irritants of the outside world. It is clearly that emotional stability is the guarantee of a person’s normal and healthy existence as an individual. Our emotional stability can be pushed out of its harmony and balance by the influence of different facts and reasons so to maintain a balance we as humans should see clearly what is around us and act accordingly. Video games in a lot of cases provide reasons for our angry and frustrated behaviour. A very simple example is when a gamer who can’t proceed to the next level or complete his mission starts to behave roughly, beats his keyboard and mouse, yells on those who are around him etc. Many of the video games are based on violence and become more violent with time. Parents all around the world complain about brutal and aggressive behaviour of their children who play a lot of video games, especially action games and shooters (Kutner & Olson 53). Almost anything is bad if it is used more than needed which so shooters are not necessarily bad games. In the situation with video games children and teenagers very quickly become addictive. There are even special centers for healing such game addicts because it is clearly a problem nowadays which is very similar to gambling. So emotional stability is in danger because playing a lot of violent games during long time will eventually lead to a person’s anti-social behaviour and in that case person will demonstrate his emotions not taking in consideration what others think and feel because his communication skills are on a low level. To justify such behaviour only one thing can be added. Children who try to substitute their real life and real emotional activity with video games are most probably unhappy and disappointed with what they see around them. Their frustration with real world could be demonstrated in a lot of ways (reading a lot, watching movies, traveling, sports, listening to the music etc.) but video games are so popular that they overshadow all of those activities (Clarke & Mitchell 2005). That is because video games give you an illusion that you are in control, you decide what to do and what no to do, you choose whom to kill and whom not. In reality such a person has school, homework, domestic tasks and responsibilities to parents but on the hand there is much more interesting illusion in which you create and rule your own world which matches your demands and makes your existence more interesting and exciting. Overall it is a great side of video games which makes playing them not just absorbing information but also a participation in creating it. However this reason is similar to a reason of drugs and alcohol addiction as well as gambling. Such person prefers sweet illusion instead of a bitter truth. That is wrong because by ignoring and not dealing with outside problems these problems won’t just go away and will eventually crash those who tried to hide from them and in that case person will not be able to confront them because such person decided to run away. But when running can’t be continued there is no longer the power for the struggle and that is when emotional collapse happens. After that it is much harder to help a person than at the beginning. To sum it all up it will be fair to say that almost all facts and theories as well as researches are made on the matter of negative influence of video games while its positive sides can be described and defined only due to the general popularity of videogames and their praise by fans. Some may say that if anything is good it is not necessary must be observed but something bad should be in order to see clearly what is bad and why it is bad and how can it be dealt with. In the case with videogames it is clear that the main problems are connected with the immoderate, inappropriate and overtime usage of them and rarely in games themselves so videogame is an interesting hobby but it doesn’t mean that the more you play the better which is, unfortunately, exactly the way most of the addictive gamers feel and think. Works Cited Berger, A. Video Games: A Popular Culture Phenomenon. New York: Transaction Publishers, 2006. Clarke, A., Mitchell, G. Videogames and Art. Boston: Intellect Books, 2005. Gee, J. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. London: Macmillan, 2014 Kutner, L., Olson, C. Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. Chicago: Simon and Schuster, 2006. Newman, J. Videogames. London: Routledge, 2007 Vorderer, P., Jennings, B. (2012) Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences. London: Routledge Read More