I started this blog as an assignment for my summer English
course. I had trouble leading up to my first post deciding what to write about.
Either my topic was too broad, too narrow, or too incredibly uninteresting to
me. Literally the morning that my first post was due I awoke with an epiphany:
a topic that was both interesting to me personally and within the proper realm
of narrowness without being too narrow. The primary question I asked was: “What
effects do, or can, video games have on a person?”
Originally it was my intention to start my search, as I often do when looking for information, at Wikipedia. My instructor was kind enough to comment about a book that Jane McGonigal had written that she believed may be relevant to my inquiry. This derailed, tho in a good way, my search from starting at Wikipedia. Eventually I found a Ted Talk by Jane and thus was my first source of information. From there I explored 5 additional sources, all of which provided interesting and generally relevant information. I will admit I slanted my search, since this was a personal inquiry, towards the positive information. I learned a great number of interesting and potentially useful factoids for use in an upcoming research paper. Being the person I am, however, I could not neglect the negatives even if I could minimize my exposure to them. Comparing my sources is difficult as they all touched on varied ways in which video games could have an effect, positive and negative, on the world, society, and people. From McGonigal’s perspective that we need to triple the number of hours spent as a global whole playing online games, to the research that indicates seniors playing a specific genre of games can increase their cognitive functions, to research showing a link between aggressive behaviors in academically low performing students who play games. Largely, however, I find myself looking favorably on the information and find that it supports my personal thoughts on the subject.
With respect to my initial inquiry, I believe that the sources I probed have provided me a satisfactory answer. I know how positive the effects of video game use can range and I am aware, to my betterment personally and scholastically, of the ill effects they can have. I still wonder about a few things, some ancillary to the original topic and others only vaguely related to games as a whole. I still wonder about a chicken/egg scenario presented by one of my sources which no research study done can provide an answer to: do games cause aggressiveness or are aggressive people drawn to games? Other inquiries include the effectiveness of ESRB ratings? What stereotypes are portrayed in games: racial, sexual, sexual orientation, etc? Perhaps if I continue my blog I can start to explore these for the purely personal interest…
The greatest probability of an argument on my part will be that video games are NOT the demonizing influence on people, especially children that many interests groups maintain they are. As a secondary argument I would even argue in favor of increased production of video games given the beneficial side effects gameplay can have.
Ultimately I enjoyed, if had some personal difficulty, with this experiment and assignment. Time permitting, I will maintain my blog.
Originally it was my intention to start my search, as I often do when looking for information, at Wikipedia. My instructor was kind enough to comment about a book that Jane McGonigal had written that she believed may be relevant to my inquiry. This derailed, tho in a good way, my search from starting at Wikipedia. Eventually I found a Ted Talk by Jane and thus was my first source of information. From there I explored 5 additional sources, all of which provided interesting and generally relevant information. I will admit I slanted my search, since this was a personal inquiry, towards the positive information. I learned a great number of interesting and potentially useful factoids for use in an upcoming research paper. Being the person I am, however, I could not neglect the negatives even if I could minimize my exposure to them. Comparing my sources is difficult as they all touched on varied ways in which video games could have an effect, positive and negative, on the world, society, and people. From McGonigal’s perspective that we need to triple the number of hours spent as a global whole playing online games, to the research that indicates seniors playing a specific genre of games can increase their cognitive functions, to research showing a link between aggressive behaviors in academically low performing students who play games. Largely, however, I find myself looking favorably on the information and find that it supports my personal thoughts on the subject.
With respect to my initial inquiry, I believe that the sources I probed have provided me a satisfactory answer. I know how positive the effects of video game use can range and I am aware, to my betterment personally and scholastically, of the ill effects they can have. I still wonder about a few things, some ancillary to the original topic and others only vaguely related to games as a whole. I still wonder about a chicken/egg scenario presented by one of my sources which no research study done can provide an answer to: do games cause aggressiveness or are aggressive people drawn to games? Other inquiries include the effectiveness of ESRB ratings? What stereotypes are portrayed in games: racial, sexual, sexual orientation, etc? Perhaps if I continue my blog I can start to explore these for the purely personal interest…
The greatest probability of an argument on my part will be that video games are NOT the demonizing influence on people, especially children that many interests groups maintain they are. As a secondary argument I would even argue in favor of increased production of video games given the beneficial side effects gameplay can have.
Ultimately I enjoyed, if had some personal difficulty, with this experiment and assignment. Time permitting, I will maintain my blog.
do you still continue to produce video games?
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