Should Parent Allow Their Children Play Video Games?

Hung P Nguyen

English 1102

Dr. Rosalyn Jacobs

1 December 2016

Final Research Paper

        Technology is one of the biggest major which is a combination of creative thinking and invention of science which help our life become more easy. In the developing of technology era, people is using technology devices every day in every major such as working, studying, entertainment, or even treatment. However, there are a lot of directors make movies about the disaster of losing control of technologically advanced weapons, and the development of artificial intelligence proves that some people are concerned about the affection of technology in our life. Nowadays, the development of technology is a controversial topic such as the invention of technologically advanced weapons, the developing of artificial intelligence and also the creation of video games, etc. Among that, video games are the most concerned topic because it related with the development of children. There are a lot of parents do not allow their children to play video games, which I think that is not a right way to raise children. As a college student and a gamer who also used to make money from game, I think video games can connect other people together, increase reflexes of brain, reduce stress and also increase creativity.

        First of all, there are several types of video games such as educational games, violent games, adventure games, sport games, etc. And also, each type of games has a different purpose. With some people, they think all of video games are bad which only waste a lot of time, and could increase the bad and violent behavior of children. However, there are a lot of games can help children for learning and be more creative such as Chemistry game which players can do chemical experiment that can give players more information, knowledge about Chemical. The reason that most parents do not allow their children to play video games because children commonly are interested in violent video games which parents think that is a cause of violence. According to “Violent Video Games Do Not Cause Violence” by Eric Kain, he quoted a tweet of Donald Trump who is the next president of United States: “Video game violence & glorification must be stopped—it's creating monsters!”, and also Wayne LaPierre who is current Executive Vice President of NRA said "Guns don't kill people. Video games, the media, and Obama's budget kill people.” However, blaming on violent video games for violent behavior is lack of authenticity. First, there is a research was published in 2010 by the American Psychological Association concluded that “violent video games increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and aggressive behaviors and decrease empathic feelings and pro-social behaviors" (Kain), and Kain also said in his article that “results from another meta study showed that most studies of violent video games over the years suffered from publication biases that tilted the results toward foregone correlative conclusions” which mean violent games might increase aggressive thoughts and aggressive behaviors but there is no evidence prove that could related and caused of violent behaviors. Researchers are from University of Bologna inferred that playing video games doesn’t impact on the aggressive behavior of human from a study of “"Short-Term Psychological and Cardiovascular Effects on Habitual Players.” In the research of the Journal of the American Medical Association from 1995 to 2003 shows that video games have high rate of revenue growth over the past decade from $3.2 billion to $7 billion in sales. However, researchers also point out that teen violence has decreasing which mean playing video games doesn’t have negative effect on human behaviors. Second, if violent games were a cause of violence, hunting in real life or boxing would be a main cause. In a research in the article of Kain he said “Games aren't developed in a vacuum, and they reflect the cultural milieu that produces them. So of course we have violent games” In other words, there is no evidence or research proves that playing video games is the leading cause of the increasing of anger and aggressive behaviors. In fact, adults blame on violent games is a cause of violent behavior in children because they don’t want to take responsibility for their actions that they might have a violent behavior in front of their kids. Children don’t know anything, they just learn and follow the same thing what they see from adults. Otherwise, the way parents raise their children significantly affect to children’s behaviors.

        Second, playing video games could be a good way for mental treatment. According to psychology research, an estimated 350 million people get have a depression experience. Mental illnesses such as anxiety disorder, depression which come from the stress of work and life as well, especially as children. Finding and making friends, studying problems, lack of thinking are the most reason make children get mental illnesses which significantly affect to their life. In the article “Video Games Could Be Good for Your Mind” by Anna North, was published on 2015 by The New York Times, she said playing video games can disrupt the visual memory in the brain by removing it into the sensory part which can “make old, disturbing memories less intrusive” (North, 2). Furthermore, video games can not only rebuilt memories, improve the mental conditions but also can bring people together, and help people overcome fear of themselves. Otherwise, Anna also said “some games currently on the market directly address mental-health conditions” (North, 2). For instance, in Pacific Standard, Kyle Chayka wrote that video games help him to reduce the anxiety feeling when he rides the subway by taking his attention and focusing on the game. Playing video games require very high interaction between eye, hands, and brain. By the way, video games can easy distract people by paying their attention and focusing on the game which can help people forget about their bad memories. In the other research of Tessa Berenson was published by Time, she uses video games as a mental treatment and turns it into a program that called “Super Better” with the purpose “help others work through depression, anxiety, brain injuries and chronic illnesses” (Berenson, 2). On the other hand, there are more brain activity when people are playing video games. In the article “Why Playing Video Games Can Actually Be Good for Your Health” by Tessa Berenson, McGonigal who is a game designer reported that playing video games can activate the operations of the rewards pathway system in our brain, which is related to learning skills and memory. Both of learning skills and memory are the main parts of the brain, which also doesn’t operate when people are suffering from mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, etc. Otherwise, playing video games can connect other people together which can reduce the chance of anxiety, depression. And also, it can reduce the pain. According to the article “Playing video games is good for your brain” by Mark Griffiths, children who play video games after having a chemotherapy need less analgesia than the others.