VIDEO GAMES AND

NEGATIVE EFFECTS VS. POSITIVE EFFECTS

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

The biggest ongoing discussion about video games

is whether or not violent video games produce violent

behavior in children who play them.

A study done by Children Now in 2001 found that

the content among the Top-10 best-selling video

games:

89% contained some form of violence, half of which

resulted in damage to a character

79% of E-rated games contained some form of violence

· lacked gender and ethnic diversity

Violent video games can:

· Lead to antisocial behavior in children

· Lead to poor academic performance

· Lead to delinquency

· Reinforce racist or sexist stereotypes

· Desensitize children to violent acts

· Teach children that using violence is an

appropriate way to solve problems

· Allow players to become emotionally

involved with their character and take

joy in violence

· Allow players to commit violent acts

· Allow players to receive constant and

immediate reinforcement for aggressive

performance, either visual or auditory

stimulation

· Act as a training ground to learn aggressive

behavior

Video games play on the user’s emotions. Scientists are worried that this may stimulate the brain’s right lobe, which does emotion processing, without stimulating the left lobe, which is more rational and puts things into context. This may be the answer to why violent video games can be correlated with aggressive behavior. Researchers have found, the more realistic the game is, the stronger the negative impact.

In addition to the negative aspect of video games being violent, they can also be quite addictive. In this new age of technology, children are spending much more time playing video games and watching television. The immediate reinforcement children get when playing video games allows them to become addicted more quickly than with other activities where the rewards may come later.

POSITIVE EFFECTS

Some scientists argue that video games can have a positive influence on children, and that they have great potential in being useful in getting people to learn and think about things.

Positives:

· Players actively co-create the worlds of games by the decisions they make

· Games can be open-ended and allow for creativity and individualism

· Players are so caught up in playing, they may be learning things without realizing it

· A game can allow the player to see that events can happen differently and for a variety of complicated and interconnected reasons

· Games relate verbal information to both visual images and actions

· Games reward exploration, nonlinear thinking, and rethinking goals from time to time

· Games allow a sense of control and flexibility, that is sometimes absent in real life

James Paul Gee, and education professor at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, has written a book What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy, in which he discusses 36 important learning principles that are built into good video games.

They include:

· Active Critical Learning Principle- aspects of learning environment are set up to encourage active learning

· Design Principle- learning about and appreciating design

· Semiotic Principle- learning about and appreciating interrelations across multiple sign systems (images, words, actions…)

· Semiotic Domains Principle- learning involves mastering semiotic domains and being able to participate in the groups connected to them

· Metalevel Thinking About Semiotic Domains Principle- learning involves active and critical thinking about the relationships of the semiotic domain

· “Pyschosocial Moratorium” Principle- learners can take risks in a situation where real-world consequences are lowered

· Committed Learning Principle- learners participate in an extended engagement

· Identity Principle- involves taking on and playing with identities

· Self-Knowledge Principle- learners learn not only about the domain but about themselves

· Amplification of Input Principle- for a little input, learners get a lot of output

· Achievement Principle- intrinsic rewards for learners at all levels

· Practice Principle- learners get practice in context where it is not boring

· Ongoing Learning Principle- there are cycles of new learning, automatization, undoing automatization, and new reorganized automatization

· “Regime of Competence” Principle

· Probing Principle

· Multiple Routes Principle- there are multiple ways to move ahead

· Situated Meaning Principle- meanings of signs are situated in embodied experience

· Text Principle- texts are not understood purely verbally

· Intertextual Principle- understands a text as being part of a group of texts (genre)

· Multimodal Principle- meaning and knowledge built up through many modalities

· “Material Intelligence” Principle- thinking, problem solving, and knowledge “stored” in material objects in environment

· Intuitive Knowledge Principle- not just verbal and conscious knowledge rewarded

· Subset Principle

· Incremental Principle

· Concentrated Sample Principle- learner sees many more instances of fundamental signs and actions

· Bottom-up Basic Skills Principle- basic skills are not learned in isolation or out of context

· Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-In-Time Principle

· Discovery Principle

· Transfer Principle

· Cultural Models About the World Principle- learning without degeneration of identities, abilities or social affiliations

· Cultural Models About Semiotic Domains Principle

· Distributed Principle- knowledge and meaning are distributed across learner, objects, tools, symbols, and environment

· Dispersed Principle- learner shares knowledge with others outside the domain

· Affinity Group Principle- learners constitute an “affinity group”

· Insider Principle- learner is an “insider” and able to customize the learning experience

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