The Impact of Video Gaming on Decision-Making - Assignment Example

Popular culture is more commonly known as ‘mass’ and ‘common culture,’ or ‘junk’ and ‘low’ culture in our everyday lives. Since World War II, popularculture increasingly is consumer culture –it could be anything ranging from entertainment, information, and material commodities - like films, television, fast food, radio, advertising, bumper stickers, magazines, comic books, video games, cyberspace, fashion, celebrities, advertising, beauty trends, radio, mass produced toys, cruise ship tours, sports, and art, music, fiction, and dances geared toward mass audiences. Increasingly, popular culture is transmitted by the mass media (TV, films, radio, Internet, video games, newspapers, magazines, etc.). Popular culture forges an easily accessible bond that brings people together. Pop culture contributes heavily to our national economy. Sociologists view popular culture as an extraordinarily major socialization agent; along with schools, family, peer groups, nation, and religion, pop culture teaches us how to be members of our culture. Cultural change has been brought about by the rapid technological diffusion of the internet. Many distinctly American values are reflected in our popular culture. Other important American values reinforced by our popular culture include conquering and taming nature, equality, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Power relations are embedded in its messages, artifacts, and activities. This paper will concentrate on computer and video games as a popular culture in the 21st century, while connecting it to three theories and discovering the values that this helps to inculcate in the children. Lord Puttnam, UNICEF (2006) feels learning has to move on with the times. Industries had grown with the back-up of technologies and the skills and capabilities required for the new economy is different from those needed in the last century. Just as a glass can be ‘half-full’ or ‘half-empty’ computer and video games too have been interpreted through different perspectives, which is what makes this a fascinating popular culture. Helping people to help each other is the key to economic success in this century and games have been quick to respond to this than education believes Puttnam. Like most other popular cultures, computer and video games too have given rise to social policy debates. Controlling images The images of people we see in our popular culture profoundly shape each of our realities, self-concepts, and the ways in which we view and value other people. A controlling image is a damaging stereotype created by those with a master status to define those with a subordinate status in society. Those who monopolize power in a society have the most impact on how groups of people are represented in imagery. Such powerful imagery maintains privilege for elites. Controlling images are called controlling not only because they frequently appear on TV, film, literature, popular fiction, and in the news, but because they reinforce a way of looking at individuals in certain groups and can have a huge impact on the way their behavior, attitudes, and characteristics are interpreted by others. Computer gaming has gained this popularity as UK has been the driving force behind global computer games (Puttnam). In UK young people developed skills while designing, developing, programming, publishing and distributing interactive products. UK established the foundation for a globally recognized creative development industry that exists today. Computer games help to develop cognitive skills. Games are spatial, iconic, and dynamic, and have things going on at different locations (Subrahmanyama, Greenfieldb, Krautc & Gross, 2001). Children develop skills by playing such games. It also helps to prepare them for science and technology. Lord Puttnam, cites Presnky who in 2001 stated that computer and video games are virtual play environments which feature challenges, rules, goals, feedback, interaction and story. He feels games allow children to engage with complex decisions, exploring the effects of different choices, and a multiplicity of variables. They stimulate conversation and discussions; the players can share ideas. Computer games are extensively used in teaching, learning and education. It makes learning more fun and people tend to believe that digital games offer a powerful learning tool. Game playing can also increase confidence in children. Commercial computer and video games encourage debate, adaptation, analysis and celebration. Today they are enmeshed with the nation’s cultural identity. Leisure Leisure time is not simply time free from work. It is the portion of our “free time” that is available for leisure pursuits like watching television exercising, or reading for enjoyment. Studies demonstrate that people like to spend their time on passive recreation like watching television, playing video games or surfing the net, reading, spending time with family, going to movies, visiting friends, playing games, listening to music. Sports come further down the line. (US Bureau of the Census, Social Indicators, 2002). Video games have become the preferred leisure activity ever since it was introduced in the 1970s. It is the fastest growing and the most profitable most profitable childrens cultural industry. Parents have always been concerned with the ill effects of playing video games and the amount of time children waste playing these games. Various psychologists and researches have reached no conclusion on the effects of video games. Children virtually spend their summer vacations playing these games. About half of all children have a video game player or a computer on which to play the video game and parents do not restrict the types of game the children play. AskDr.Sears.com reports eighty percent of most popular video games feature violence and aggressiveness. Surveys also suggest, by the time a typical American child reaches the age of eighteen, he has seen 200,000 acts of violence and 40,000 murders on screen. According to Maney (2005) video games might be the best things that children can do to ensure their future success. Maney quotes Steve Johnson, who says that at every point while playing the video games one has to make decisions. One has to think about patterns, long-term goals, and resources. These help to take a decision and depending upon the feedback from the game one again has to adjust the decision. Maney confirms that games like Halo 2, EverQuest or the lurid Grand Theft Auto hone the kind of decision-making abilities that define a successful person. As with most popular culture, debates and controversies become prominent. Parents often insist that children should spend time reading books rather than playing video games. Johnson disagrees saying whatever the benefits of reading, you are following someone else’s decision. Video games have been linked to violence and aggressive behavior. Others believe that video games provide an outlet for aggression and frustration. According to the journal American Family Physician, studies have not been able to show concrete evidence of behavior being affected due to violent video games. This argument can be countered by the violence and blood bath that children are exposed to, in books like King Lear and Lord of the Flies. They challenge the belief that books are automatically better than video games. Dr. John C Beck, author of Got Games, believes video games foster team skills (cited by Powell S, 2005). He refutes the view that it promotes autonomous action. Military organizations were the first to recognize the value of video games in training. Even medical institutions ask the candidates who come for surgery posts whether they have been playing video games. Video gaming is considered a basic skill builder for hand-eye co-ordination. Gamers have better attitudes towards teams, team building, and team worlds than non-gamers do. Basic skills can be easily taught through video games. Gamers are willing to take risks and more have entrepreneurial thinking. They are more likely to value and understand other cultures than non-gamers. Video games encourage strategic thinking at a young age. In fact, even MBA programs should be taught using video games. Video games are changing the way coming generations will work and manage data (cited by Maney). Games definitely provide entertainment apart from education. The game developers work with educationists in the development of their products. Video tools allow children to write their own stories and enhance them with animation and sound. Children feel a pride in their own work as they come out with satisfactory results. The main criticisms against video games are exposure to violence and self-centered attitude but no conclusive evidence is available to substantiate these fears. The benefits cannot be overlooked when there you suggestions to include it in education. Hence, children do not waste time when playing video games. Simulacrum We have entered the era of the simulacrum (or simulation or simulated reality). A simulacrum is a reproduction of objects and events; a likeness, a representation, an image, an effigy, a stand-in, a semblance, a facsimile, a ‘fake.’ In 1983, Baudrillard argued in a seminal work:  Simulacra and Simulations: Disneyland, that our civilization is increasingly dominated by representations that stand for something real, rather than what is actually real.  More and more, we are surrounded by representations of what is real and are interacting with these stand-ins for the real. According to Baudrillard, there has been a dissolution of TV, video games, and cyberspace into life and the dissolution of life into TV, video games, and cyberspace.  Cybercommunities such as The Sims and video gaming construct simulated realities that millions of children, teens, and adults ‘enter.’ Over 10 billion dollars a year is spent by American consumers entranced by video gaming, a number that far outstrips the sale of books (Johnson, 2005).  And while critics of video gaming and cybercommunities may denounce them as acts of social isolation by alienated people, the fact is that both are thriving social scenes, in which players go far beyond the digital domain with their social relations (Taylor, 2006). Players build up an inventory of characters as well as an inventory of skills and social relationships that may be world-wide. One can indeed become a member of a community that provides real social meaning and social roles for individuals who are defining social life and roles in once unimaginable ways, as they intertwine online and offline identities, and sometimes work and play.  The fact is that playing The Sims or a video game is ‘half-real.’ As Juul (2005) has shown, we play by real rules while imagining a fictional world.  Leisure time, of course, allows for the immergence of this phenomenon of blending of the fictitious and real world in popular culture and our own lives. Erving Goffman argues that each of us wear multiple social masks.  Actors on a stage, we play various characters such as mom, dad, sibling, employee, daughter, son, weekend soccer player, student, Army reserve officer, etc. According to Goffman, before we act out each of the social roles we play, we assemble props, costumes, proper language and demeanor, and scripts on a back stage.  On the front stage, we present our “acts” and learn from others whether they have been received as adequate performances or not.  Cyberspace and video gaming have simply extended the boundaries of self where we can play the games people play. Online games are becoming increasingly popular. These are played by people over the World Wide Web by users connected to the internet by a PC or a games console (Puttman). Massively nullity-player online game (MMOG) is an exciting innovation which places the player in an internet-based virtual world where thousands of players across nations share same goals and experiences via networked servers. MMOGs have become virtual spaces for teaching and collaboration because they allow multiple users, group activities and content creation. In the goal-oriented virtual worlds people have complete autonomy in their approach to resolution while the social virtual worlds provide an open-ended experience with the intent of creating a space which is used by players to socialize and collaborate. Online games assist in the development of social norms. It helps children to develop skills relevant to practical work environments through collaborative problem-solving and collective intelligence. Users become insiders and producers of knowledge. This gives an inner sense of pride and satisfaction, there by confidence to face the challenges in the external world. Despite controversies and debates, games allow players to enter environments that would be impossible to access in any other way. Children are exposed to complex situations, difficult choices. Players are able to share ideas, tips and hints, which is what makes this pop culture fascinating. It is a fully personalized, responsive and enjoyable learning experience says Puttnam. The traditional American values are reinforced. Values are a reflection of a society’s economic system. Computer and video games stress the values of individualism, freedom of expression, self-empowerment, competition, success, and progress. It also trains people to think what to believe in and how to spend their leisure time. This pop culture is beyond the issues of age, race, class, gender, sexuality especially as online games are very popular. . It helps to understand conflicts and reconciliations between classes, races, ethnic groups, nations, genders, and generations. Despite controversies and negative influences that computer and video games are supposed to lead to, there has been no conclusive evidence to support it. Controlling images reinforce the way we look at individuals in certain groups and those engaged in computer games can now be looked up to with dignity. Video and computer games have tremendous leisure component and children learn while playing, which makes education interesting and fascinating. They develop such skills through play which educationists have been trying for decades. It makes the children smarter and develops their cognitive skills that make them think more quickly, broadly and less linearly. This pop culture will undoubtedly lead to a knowledgeable and enthusiastic new generation who possess the tenacity, foresightedness, and problem-solving techniques. References: AskDr.Sears.com, 14 Dec 2006 Maney K (2005), Video games not necessarily turning kids brains to mush, 14 Dec 2006 Powell S (2005), The impact of video gaming on decision-making and teamworking skills, Campus-wide Information Sysytems, Vol. 22 No. 5, 2005 pp. 320-326 Puttnam, L. (2006), UNICEF, Unlimited learning, 14 Dec 2006 Subrahmanyama, K., Greenfieldb, P., Krautc, R., & Gross, E., (2001), The impact of computer use on childrens and adolescents development, Applied Developmental Psychology 22 (2001) 7-30 14 Dec 2006 Read More