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Failure to observe and control young people might lead to too much negative influence, which can culminate in changed lifesty
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Outline
Introduction
Thesis statement: Failure to observe and control young people might lead to too much negative influence, which can culminate in changed lifestyle, behavior, physical issues, and mental disorders.
Video game addiction
Reasons for addiction
Minimum hours that qualify as addiction
Impacts
Aggression
Desensitization
Attention deficit
Diseases
Problematic computer gaming
Addiction
Mental health problems
Example of Video Games
Conclusion
Video Games
The history of video games takes us back to 1949 when Ralph Baer, a young engineer, was working on an assignment of building a television set. This assignment was not just about building any television set, but the best television set. This did not stand as a big challenge to Baer, but he wanted to do more than that by including a game in his television set. His plan never worked out as he did not have a clear plan and his employers nixed the notion. It took another eighteen years for this idea to become real. However, the glory went to other people such as Willy Higinbotham, who developed a tennis game that involved the use of an oscilloscope, and Russell Steve, who designed a simple space game for a mainframe computer. Nolan Bushnell also made some important contributions through his space game and his ideas concerning midways filled with computer games (Rabin, 5).
Today, the world is full of video games developed for both computers and television sets. Over the years, video game applications and devices such as PS2, Dreamcast, and Xbox have advanced from their infancy into great sophistication. Games identify with recent versions of video game players such as Xbox 360 and PS3. Still, there exist thousands of PC games and speculations for the introduction of many more. Companies such as Sony, Phillips, and Microsoft that have stakes in video games have made billions and still have bright prospects. Video games have indeed become a ubiquitous part of modern day world, and they are preferred as a mode of leisure, especially for young people. A trend whereby producers and designers convert movies to games to reach a wider audience is also on the rise (Herman et al., 1). Underlying concerns of the impact video games have on young people accompany these trends. Parents ought to observe their young ones, as they get involved in video games. Failure to observe and control young people might lead to too much negative influence, which can culminate in changed lifestyle, behavior, physical issues, and mental disorders.
Video Game Addiction
Gaming has become a popular activity and many young people become addicted to video games. Addiction is said to have set in when video games consume gamers’ time to the extent that they replace other important activities such as socializing, sports, work, and education. Research shows that gamers are increasingly becoming engulfed in activities that consume their time replacing important real life activities. Some video game players escalate their activities to the level of problematic application. In such cases, gaming disrupts work, schooling, and other real-life activities largely. Video game addiction has drawn considerable attention of researchers, parents, policy makers, and other key people in the lives of young people (Hauge and Gentile, 2).
There are several reasons that cause or lead to addiction to video games. With ubiquitous internet connectivity, online gamers have become common all over the world. Research shows that this group of gamers becomes easily addicted to video games. Although video game players become addicted to the games, the development of online components in the more recent generation of video games has increased the scope of the addiction problem. This new component has led to the introduction of public and private treatment initiatives targeting addicted gamers. Consequently, research assessing video game addictions focus on online gamers so much. Western and Korean researchers concur on the fact that Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games have the worst addiction when it comes to video games. In this video game, players develop avatars (characters) over time in unreal or virtual worlds. This game leads to high levels of engagement that need players to spend so much time and cooperation to achieve goals. In general, video games require players to exhibit a certain level of commitment causing them to be addicted (Van Rooij et al., 205).
It is hard to say how many hours of playing video games qualify to be termed as addiction. However, researchers assess the least number of hours that can cause initiation of negative signs and behaviors and classify the period as addiction time. A study on a sample of video game players engaged in World of Warcraft video game showed that spending around 63 hours every week playing the game caused negative symptoms (Van Rooij et al., 205). Another research on video game addiction posits that game addiction begins when one spends more than one hour a day and more than thirty hours a week engaged in a video game. In both studies, gamers develop craving for video games, internet addiction, general craving, visual problems, and at times depression (Han, Hwang, and Renshaw, 297).
Impacts
Video games are associated with several effects on games. By far, aggression is the most common impact attributed to excessive playing of video games. Correlational, experimental, and longitudinal researches confirm that exposure to violence in video games can cause a significance rise in aggressive emotions, thoughts, and behavior over short-term as well as long-term. Albeit there exist differing results concerning the quality of data, recent meta-analytical studies confirm that video games lead to six major outcomes: aggressive cognition, aggressive behavior, aggressive affect, empathy, psychological arousal, and prosocial behavior. Because myriad children spend huge amounts of time playing video games, the effects build up and substantially affect the society. Violent games significantly increase players’ aggression by changing their emotions and thoughts, even when they seem to have control over physiological arousal. Hostility exhibits itself among players in the short term, but the changes may become permanent aggressive personality (Woog, 1).
Another line of study also suggests that video games cause game players to become desensitized to bad things thus decreasing their ability to health and have empathy. Desensitization involves a reduction in emotional and physiological reactivity to bad things such as violence. Exposure to video games in the short-term leads to the production of physiological desensitization that lasts around twenty minutes. On the other hand, long-term exposure causes chronic desensitization among gamers. Video players have their empathy significantly reduced by games, and this causes them to have increased aggressive and violent behavior. Video games also cause a certain numbing that reduces helping behavior. Research shows that students who are just from playing a video game are less likely to regard a fight they witness as dangerous or to assist the victim (Woog, 1).
Although gaming experiences have several positive effects, the negative effects, especially those of attention, are increasingly becoming evident to researchers. Researchers have found a positive correlation between video games and attention problems in young people. These scholars suggest that an extensive exposure to video game leads to attention problems after a period of thirteen months. More than three thousand children playing video games proved this finding true. Interestingly, excessive exposure to video games does not reduce attention to video game content. It appears that video games cause specific impacts on various cognitive processing types: the games can decrease proactive cognitive management but increase visuospatial processing abilities (Prot, McDonald, and Anderson, 590).
Diseases Related to Video Games
Excessive gaming can result to several diseases that stand as recognized diseases. One such disease is problematic computer gaming. Young people affected by this disease portray several symptoms. They do not think that they have a problem at all, but instead regard their parents as affected. They lie regarding computer or video game use. For instance, they may say that they only spend twenty to thirty hours when they spend forty hours. Other symptoms include staying up late, sneaking games to the room at night, trouble waking up, and constant isolation. Continued exposure leads to an exacerbation of these symptoms and children may become quarrelsome. Young players of video games may also have physical injuries as a result of excessive use (Prot, McDonald, and Anderson, 590).
Video gaming causes addiction, and this has led scientists to try and classify that addiction as a mental disorder. The phenomenon known as video game addiction has become a popular one, and several studies exist on the same. The longitudinal impairment and modest impairment has led to possible classification of this disorder in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V-TR). Once the American Psychiatric Association has finalized discussing the inclusion of the addiction due to gaming in the DSM-V-TR, it will fall under behavioral disorders that result from addictions. Video game addiction will fall in the same category with gambling, a new entrant in the mental disorders classification handbook (Van Rooij et al., 1).
Besides a possible independent classification as an independent mental health disorder, video games are also responsible for myriad symptoms related to mental illness. Scientists hypothesize that excessive exposure to video games causes a situation known as flight-from-reality that includes a depressive mood, loneliness, poor self-esteem, and social anxiety. Although excessive exposure to gaming leads to these mental issues, the relationship between video games and psychological health is much more complicated as some gamers report positive responses. Moreover, the negative effects vary from one gamer to another. Some heavy video game players suffer because of their unbalanced lifestyle while other gamers benefit from the interaction they have with the gaming environment (Rooij, 1).
Example of Video Games
Multi-Player Online Role-Playing (MMORPG) is one of the most popular multi-user domain video games causing massive addiction on young people. MMORPGs involve networked players who interact with one another as they play video games. The games require that the players achieve certain goals, high scores, and accomplishments. This makes the players to play for several hours and days in order to achieve their targets. The games combine fighting, killing, and role-playing elements in a channel that also allows social chat. Some of the ‘best’ MMORPGs include World of Warcraft, Asheron Call, and Final Fantasy (Hartman and Moverley 1).
Conclusion
Video games go back a long way into history. They have gone through tremendous evolution from the first game played on mainframe computers into what they are today. Young people all over the world can enjoy the ubiquitous technology that seems to freeze real life and activate gaming environments. However, parents are not to be restful or happy, as these games are addictive and call for immediate intervention. Young people who do not exercise temperance and spend more than 30 hours a week on video games risk developing serious problems. Gamers may have issues such as problematic computer gaming, addiction, and numerous mental health problems. Mental health problems may range from poor self-esteem to depression. Evidently, parents and the whole society need to keep watch of this rising menace that may leave young people too affected to be useful.
Works cited
Han, Doug Hyun, Jun Won Hwang, and Perry F Renshaw. “Bupropion Sustained Release Treatment Decreases Craving for Video Games and Cue-Induced Brain Activity in Patients with Internet Video Game Addiction.” Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology 18 (2010): 297–304.
Hartman, Michael, and Daniel Moverley. “A Study of the Effects on Gamers Who Play MMORPGs – Socialization, Making Friends, Being Social.” Altered Gamer. N. p., 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Hauge, Marny R, and Douglas A Gentile. “Video Game Addiction Among Adolescents : Associations with Academic Performance and Aggression.” 306 (2003): 1–3. Print.
Herman, By Leonard et al. “The History of Video Games.” 2002: 1–39. Print.
Prot, Sara, Katelyn McDonald, and Craig Anderson. Children, Adolescent, and the Media. Ed. Victor Strasburger. Iowa: Elsevier, 2012.
Rabin, Steve. Introduction to Game Development: Second Edition. Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
Rooij, Antonius J Van. “Online Video Game Addiction.” N. p., 2011. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Woog, Kenneth M, Computer Gaming, and Addiction Treatment. “Computer Gaming Addiction in Adolescents and Young Adults, Solutions for Moderating and Motivating for Success.” N. p., 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
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