That sophomore must have been pretty slow. It's written like a middle school paper with terrible vocabulary with purely personal and anecdotal evidence. Shit I'll copy and paste one of my papers for open scrutiny just to show all college kids aren't that stupid.
From Pong, to Pac man, to Halo, video games have been providing both children and adults hours of entertainment for decades. The gaming industry has evolved from a handful of developers making products which most considered toys, to a multi-billion dollar powerhouse that achieves revenue higher than that of the film industry. However, there are some that oppose this new medium out of ignorance and fear. Politicians, concerned parents, and lawyers have frequently taken up arms against video games in an attempt to have them censored and to limit the sale of games to minors. These efforts have been repeatedly struck down in the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, in accordance with the First Amendment.
Not only are video games protected by free speech, they also merit their existence by providing benefits on both an individual and societal basis. The positive effects of video games far outweigh any negative impact they might possibly produce.
The first and most obvious benefit video games afford the player is a dramatic increase in visual acuity and situational awareness. A pair of researchers at the University of Rochester are responsible for finding this link in 2003. Daphne Bavelier, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and her graduate student, Shawn Green, subjected a group of people to a series of tests that required careful observation and quick mental processes. After these tests, one group was told to play the action game Medal of Honor for one hour a day, while the other was told to play Tetris. After only two weeks, the Medal of Honor players demonstrated a drastic increase in accuracy during the tests. "Action video games require effective monitoring of a large portion of the visual field in order to effectively detect multiple fast moving peripheral targets," stated Bavelier. These visual skills would carry over to everyday tasks quite easily and effectively. Arguably, an action game player is more likely to notice a child running into the street, or a fellow driver making a mistake on the road.
A second study in 2010 by Bavalier and Green has turned up even more evidence in favor of video games. This time, individuals aged 18-25 were tasked with playing the games Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament, both fast paced action games. Another group was assigned a much slower paced game called The Sims, a game in which players control the everyday lives of an in game avatar. Again the two groups were tested before and after playing 50 hours of the assigned games. The action gamers demonstrated up to 25 percent faster responses, with as much accuracy as their counterparts. Bavelier is quoted as saying that "Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are in the middle of a battlefield that can make all the difference.? Other activities that would benefit from this mental quickness and accuracy include multitasking, reading small print, and keeping track of friends in a crowded area.
The United States army has been taking note of the advantages that interactive games provide since 2002. America?s Army has been in use by the US army for eight years as both a recruiting and training tool. The computer game is a realistic military simulator that has been shown to train soldiers both swifter and better than ever before. The game contains numerous scenarios that the modern soldier might experience on the battlefield, such as an ambush on a street in Baghdad. The game is so efficient in teaching trainees military tactics and terms that the Navy has begun implementing video games into its own training regimen. Larry McCracken, a captain in the United States Navy is a firm believer in video games? ability to teach new soldiers. "It's been a huge shift. I'm a convert. I just wish I knew how to play this game much better." America?s Army and other such training tools will help save American lives. No longer can video games be called ?toys? or something that is ?just for children.? Video games are enjoyed by a large portion of society and are now training the soldiers charged with defending said society.
We already know that University researchers are working with video games, but what about the rest of the collegiate population? Video games as a medium have been further validated with the introduction of college courses that include games as an integral part of the curriculum. Nate Poling, a PHD candidate at the University of Florida has devised a business course centered on the real time strategy game Starcraft. The description of the class states that it?s "important for professionals to be highly proficient in skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, resource management, and adaptive decision making." All of these skills are essential to becoming proficient at Starcraft, a game in which a player must monitor a main base, gather resources, expand production, and train units in order to outwit and overwhelm his or her opponent. Poling says "My problem-solving skills in StarCraft are the same problem-solving skills learned in school or the real world." Poling continues by saying that "In StarCraft you're managing a lot of different units and groups of different capacities, it's not a stretch to think of that in the business world or in the work of a healthcare administrator."
At Wabash College in Indiana, Professor Michael Abbott is proclaiming the usefulness of video games as well. Abbott has succeeded in implementing the extremely popular and critically acclaimed game Portal into a required seminar for all incoming freshman students. The course is designed to highlight "classic and contemporary works from all disciplines." Portal is being studied in accompaniment with Erving Goffman's Presentation of self in Everyday Life which compares the presentation of one?s self as a play which hides the truth backstage. Portal expresses a similar idea, wherein an all knowing artificial intelligence guides the player?s every action all while the sinister nature of the AI is revealed through player exploration and discovery of hidden rooms and clues. Portal is placed alongside poetry, the works of Aristotle, and Shakespeare?s Hamlet. To have a video game included in a course with these other great works is a true victory for the video game industry. Finally, video games are beginning to be seen as not only entertainment, but relevant pieces of art and culture.
Many critics of video games claim that gaming breeds aggression in children and results in violent thoughts and actions. However, no study conducted on this subject has produced concrete evidence in favor of this theory. A popular idea of recent times was to blame the Columbine school shooting on the popular computer game DOOM. However, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold both had a history of juvenile delinquency and some believe that the drug Luvox, which was being taken by Harris, may have partly influenced his actions. The side effects of Luvox include increased aggression, loss of remorse, depersonalization and mania. There is any number of factors that could contribute to a terrible event such as the Columbine shooting, but video games cannot reasonably be included among them. In fact, there is evidence that video games actually reduce stress and aggression. By providing a form of escapism, video games help to relax the player and provide an opportunity to suspend anxiety or negative feelings. Playing a computer or video game for just thirty minutes can result in a drastic decrease in stress. Professor Trent Kilcannon of William & Mary University echoes this sentiment, claiming that the best types of games for relaxation are puzzle and word games which are easy to pick up and repetitive but hard to master. Many a frazzled student or employee has ended a long tedious day with a game of Bejewled or Halo to unwind.
Video games, like comic books decades ago, are coming under attack by those who do not understand this new artistic medium. The shoddy and moralistic arguments of game critics fall by the wayside as unquestionable fact demonstrates that video games not only entertain, but aid people and societies around the world. Individuals are relaxing, students are studying, and soldiers are training all through the use of video games.
Only informal/in text citation was required so don't get your panties in a bunch over proper mla format.
I'm a freshman.
