Media Mash Up

Video Games - Learning v.s. Violence

How does video games influence children?

In 2013, Grand Theft Auto V, a video game software released by Rockstar Games was officially confirmed as the fastest entertainment property to gross one billion dollars in the Guinness World Record. Now videogames have become one of the biggest entertainment properties especially among children. 

Image Credit: Rockstar Games

Most recently, U.S. educators started to pay attention to gamification’s the strong power of attraction for students and use it to help teach humanities, science and math. However, that experimentation by educators brought about a controversy of whether playing videogames helps students to study or not. Some argue that children’s over exposure to videogames decreases their brain functions and leads to violent behaviors. On the other hand, others assert opposite opinions. For example, playing videogames enhances children’s cognitive skills and it doesn’t effect to players’ behavior. Do videogames really help children study and why are there different arguments depends on experts or specialists?

Some educators and scientists argue that playing video games enhances human’s brain functions such as cognitive skills or memorization. An associate professor of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University, Douglas Clark, points out “game-playing students outperformed non-players in terms of cognitive, interpersonal  and interpersonal learning outcomes” in his survey. Games designed for education such as “River City” already exist and the National Science Foundation (NSF) asserts those games “help learners acquire deep science-inquiry skills and conception knowledge.” 

Image Credit: NES

In addition, video games have a potential to enhance not only cognitive skills but also children’s decision making abilities. Until five or ten years ago, all we could do in videogames was shoot or defeat opponents and get higher points. However, now videogames have become more and more complicated and some of those scenarios require very difficult decisions in terms of morality or humanity. 

An NSF program director, Chris Hoadley explains “Ten years ago, we had a lot of questions about whether you could get anything serious out of a game”, but at the same time he argues “serious games can enhance not only acquisition of facts or specific onscreen skills but also some of the more fuzzy, squishy, 21^st –century things like leadership, teamwork and agency.”  According to Pew Research Center’s data on Dec. 15, 2015, 64 percent of US adults think video games improve problem-solving and strategic thinking. Thus some claim that video games can enhance children’s brain functions. 

Other people argue that video games can cause people to commit acts of criminal violence, but there is small correlation between aggressive behavior and violent media consumption. It is clear that the students who killed 13 people at a Columbine, Colorado high school played a violent gun-shooting game, but it is unreasonable to ignore the other factors and conclude that the main reason was the bloody video game. 

Chris Ferguson, co-chair of the Department of Psychology at Stetson University asserts that “older researchers and doctors were more likely to view games negatively”. Playing videogames was not likely to be the main reason for that tragedy. 

Generally, aggressive children come from violent and abusive households and we can see playing videogames is just a way to release their anger. A creative director of the MIT Education Arcade, Scot Osterwell asserts “most of the studies that say games are harmful don’t hold up in terms of their validity.” Also the professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University, James Paul Gee argues “what matters most is how games are used and in what context.”  It is not necessarily accurate to claim that blaming videogames for the violent behavior is oversimplified and ignores other factors to make people aggressive and commit violent behavior.

For years, the debate on whether or not games can enhance learning and help students study is far from finished. However, the data showing games can improve people’s brain functions is abundant and we shouldn’t ignore it. 

Arguments that videogames leads to violent behavior are everlasting, but they are obviously just exaggerations by the media because there is countries where people can buy the exact same games and nobody is killed by shootings, such as Japan. Japan is the country that invented the world’s first videogame console and its videogame market is as large as the one in the United States. Many violent and sexual American games are popular in Japan and can easily be bought there. 

However there is an astonishing reality about the number of victims by shooting. According to Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, the number of firearm mortality in the United States was 33,304 in 2014. On the other hand, it was 10 in Japan in the same year according to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. As we can see in this data, we should not be prejudiced against videogames and we should support the experimentation of putting this powerful tool into practical educational use.