Effects of Video Games Essay

The parents’ anxiety for the children, who spend too much time by the computer, grows on a world-wide scale. It is believed that they are dangerous for the child’s state of mind and develop aggressiveness, narrow the range of interests, impoverish his emotional sphere. The critical essay explains the harmful effect of video games on people, especially teenagers. It provides the viewpoint of great researchers and scientists in the sphere of psychology and computer games. Statistics data proving the huge problem of video game dependence is given in the essay. There is also explained the recent avalanche-type growth of demand on videogames, based on violence, that became the subject of public discussion since in Kentucky and Colorado states teenagers-killers reproduced in real life what they often did, playing videogames. There are given practical advices on how to avoid video game dependence.

Computerization in our life has been a usual thing for a long time and brought quite big problems along with its benefits. A computer is an instrument, with the help of which it is possible as to make money, to communicate, as well as to learn a lot of useful information. But the matter is in the way of using it. It also concerns computer games – especially because they are very fascinating for children and teenagers, but also for adults. Computer games became something like child’s infection. Many scientists and sociologists consider today, that computer games are drugs. They cause habituation and it becomes difficult to get out of the habit. Not everyone realizes that such games are very harmful (Cogburn 2009).
It is proved that cruel videogames have a negative influence on children. Such conclusion was made by the honored professor of University of the state of Iowa (USA) and the director of the Center of violence researches Craig Anderson, who studied the results of 130 scientific researches with his colleagues, covering 130 thousand people.
Children become more aggressive in ideas and behavior, unconcerned, asocial, their capacity to empathy declines. Thus there is no difference, how old a child is, what sex and race he belongs to. It is also unimportant, what method of research was chosen by psychologists. Result is always the same. It would be logical to suppose that children of 10–12 years are of more influence, being yet not formed in the social-psychological look, but research does not confirm such theoretical letups.
“We do not state that a child will become a criminal, but we can’t ignore the force of influence, — emphasized Mr. Anderson. — Cruel videogames — one of major factors of risk of negative consequences, related to the growth of kids’ aggressiveness. Thus it is a factor of risk with which it’s easy to manage on family level — far easier, than with such things, as poverty or genetic predisposition” (Anderson 2004).
At the same time the American academy of pediatrics published the results of regular research, the results of which do not promise anything good to gamers, reports the agency of Reuters with reference to the publication in the magazine of Pediatrics. During two years doctors intently observed three thousand of Singaporean schoolchildren, who spent different amount of time playing videogames. Frightful fact was ascertained: vision worsening and problems, related to the non-mobile way of life, are not the only dangers they could get. About 10% of schoolchildren became simply dependent on games, and for some of them there appeared psychical rejections. Even those, who succeeded to avoid game mania, confessed that craving for games grew considerably for them. On the average, children spent 20 hours a week by computer/game console. In different observable groups the amount of “pathological players” differed, but in general results were the following: in every group there were 9-12% of dependent on games boys and 3-5% of girls.
An amount of children with psychical disorders was not announced. Research shows that the youth who spent maximal time by the game became very impulsive, social skills became worse; at majority there were noticed displays of deep depression syndrome, groundless fear and social phobia. “Two-three hours a day, spent by a television set or computer practically do not reflect on health, however going beyond these limits can cause serious problems for health”, – warns the head of research Mark Griffits, professor of Nottingham Trent University (Joelving 2011).
It is proved that video games do effect the players in some ways, since it appears that players get so wrapped up in the game that they forget their surroundings and begin to see the game as a real quest (Kardaras 2008). It is also necessary to mark that analysis of 70 games-bestsellers, carried out by experts in 2001, showed that 49% of games contained the scenes of considerable cruelty. Thus in 41% of the general amount of games gaining the end by a player was impossible without displaying cruelty, and in 17% of games cruelty itself was the primary objective of the game (Anderson 2007).
Summarizing everything was told above, it is seen that the video game industry has grown to the proportions of the movie industry, and shows no sign of stopping (Kooijmans 2004).Videogames become part of mass culture. Developers amaze imagination of gamers with more enthralling and realistic novelties. However psychologists found out that developing videogames cripple child’s psyche. Most psychologists insist that, while playing videogames, children put themselves under the risk to get the so-called “syndrome of video playing epilepsy”, or “syndrome of cyber dependence” ( Neils 2009). They become easy-excitable, sleep badly. Gamers’ progress in studies drops, interest to anything fades away, except for a computer.
Age census of computer dependence is teenagers and young people up to 18-20 years. In fact the immature psyche of teenager cannot resist the perfection of games, with the brightness of image and growth of possibilities, imitating reality. For the change of consciousness and principles of co-operating with the real outward world, for a teenager one hour of dialog with the virtual world can be enough.
Modern games entirely imitate the constituents of battle scenarios: human body, blood. Their majority is built on the imitation of violence – violence which is managed by a player! An ardour for computer games further more can result in malfunction of mental ability of a person and complete degradation of personality.