The Pros And Cons Of Video Games

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Recommended: Impact on adolescents of playing video games

Imagine a group of teens going downstairs to go play the new Super Smash Bros., a game in which you pick your favorite Nintendo character from over the years, and battle your friends on a island in the ocean, or outside of a majestic palace in the clouds with power-ups. This may seem like just any other common scene, but inside this activity a whole new mindset is arising on the surface that can change the current belief that video games are a waste of time, it doesn’t help you learn, and that it leads to aggression and violence that can jeopardize our society in the future. Even though video games can cause aggression and violence that can lead to concerns in parents and teachers alike, the arguments against video games have been proven unreliable …show more content…

Folks against video games link it to increased aggression arguing that it “desensitizes kids to violence,” (Issues & Controversies 1) which lead to events like school shootings. Forbes Magazine reported that Ander Breivik, the Norwegian who shot 69 people at a youth camp in 2011, used the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as a simulator to help him practice shooting people (Issues & Controversies 1). However, the fact-of-the-matter is that negative conclusions about video games are not reliable. This is because the researching of technology has been proven inaccurate. Christopher Ferguson, a psychology professor at Florida 's Stetson University, says that “Studies that aim to find negative effects get funded and promoted, while those with more benign findings are unpublished and forgotten” (Keilman 2). He thinks that 's because “ When a new generation of scholars more familiar …show more content…

Unlike the opposition that states that you don’t learn from it because it’s a waste of time, video games can be good for you from the cognitive side. Claimed benefits include improved problem solving, mastery of scientific knowledge, and the ability to apply information learned to real life situations (Glazer 1). James Gee, a professor of reading at the University of Wisconsin and author of the 2003 book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, says that “Video Games stress taking your knowledge and applying it. That’s pretty crucial for the modern world” (Glazer 1). Skills like memory and improved navigation that are critical when working in the outside can come from playing these games. But that’s not all with what videogames have to offer. Another thing that comes with video games is the concept of morality, or the feelings and emotions displayed when immersed. Matthew Grizzard, a communications professor at the University of Buffalo, conducted a study where players play a first-person shooter as United Nations soldier or a terrorist. During the study, he noted that “... those who took the role of the bad guy often felt guilt over the virtual bloodshed they committed and exhibited greater moral sensitivity…” (Keilman 3). The gamers who take the bad guy role felt that what the were doing (killing the good to promote an evil cause) was wrong and accordingly felt the guilt of playing the bad guy. It’s

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