Clifford
Nordstrom
Paper
#3 English 101 5:30
Dr.
Sonia Bergert
Dec
1, 2015
Video Games in
Education, good or bad?
The question I would
like to ask is, are Video games harmful to children and are video games in
education worth investing in? That answer is debatable though in my opinion
video games are indeed worth investing in as far as education. There has been
heavy and heated debates on whether or not games are good or bad, and it is
true in some aspects bad for instance, having a child who is young and does not
know much about violence will play some games that are prone to violence and would
be more susceptible to be violent. Though video games do have the habit of
being violent and in a manner of speaking bloody. There is in fact a rated
restriction and when buying games meant for adults one has to have parental
guidance or a type of identity that determines you are of age to consider
buying this type of game. The main reason why I would like to talk about video
games is because of the excellent use we can gain by introducing schools with
educational games. Students may be able to problem solve and be more logical in
decision making.
Though games can teach
us many things through out or youth but with poor guidance and access to
violent games can teach us that violent is welcomed. The brain is figuratively
made of plastic and has the ability to become lopsided. In the book Game Addiction,
Niels Clark says, “Our brains are custom tailored and physically shapes our
environment including interactions with others.”(120) He also states, “Lack of
stimulation of the brain and body may result in intellectual, creative, social
and/or physical defects.”(120) Children are very impressionable and can easily
miss out on important stimulation necessary for brain development. Child
influenced by games may become addicted or dependent and may be withdrawn from
society. The child may be more aggressive when not playing games and become
mentally and physically unstable due to the low amount of “stimulation”(120)
being processed in the brain. I myself have witnessed firsthand of what it is
like to have a loved one highly addicted to video games. The person I knew had
parents who weren’t always there and through video games channeled their
stress, anger and sorrow to the point where they would skip whole days without
meals and rarely took showers to only become unhealthy to the point of
physically breaking down. They eventually sought help and was later
rehabilitated where they could have a decent standing in life. Video games are
labeled with rated according to age restrictions though a video game may be
labeled 17+ and rated M for mature, the parents of the children actively buy
the rated M games for their children and live in a state of denial thinking
that their child would be alright with violence in video games. Some parents
leave their children alone and let games do their babysitting which is not a
good idea and by leaving a child on a video game for extended period of time
would in a sense weakens their brain to eventually become lopsided. Games teach
us many things but there is an age restriction for a reason and by allowing
children to play in moderation and age appropriate games children should be
more prone to doing better in the long run.
The beneficial qualities by introducing learning games or
interactive puzzle games you can slightly increase a Childs cognitive ability
and develop strong intellect. Said by researchers of Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore, “much like muscles that can be trained with repetitive
actions, repeated use of certain cognitive processes in video games can improve
performance on other tasks as well.” By playing simple math games that make you
solve simple math equation in order to progress further in to the game will
allow you to develop the ability to solve equations faster. A game like Sudoku
where you have different boxes and rows where you input numbers 1-9 may be hard
at first but solving one puzzle after another will help you generate a strong
cognitive thought process. John M. Grohol, an expert in mental health online
says,
Professionals
who grew up playing video games actually make better business people. They’re
more serious about achievement; more attached to the company they work for and
the people they work with; more flexible, persistent problem-solvers; more
willing to take only the risks that make sense. In short, they’re pretty good
executives right out of the gate.
Through gaming such
small things like gaining achievements or big things like accomplishing a
really hard task can later lead to a better worker in general. Online games and
games that make you work together with another person will help to create and
build better team work skill for when working alongside others. In personal
experience playing games all my life I have inherited the knack of completing
tasks and getting the feeling of accomplishing these said tasks and by playing
online games I have also gained the ability to work well with others and throw
in my two cents, “so to speak.” Through hard ships and repetitive loss in games
I learned that there is no harm in not getting an achievement right away but to
work harder and try again and in a sense be better than when you tried the
first time, “Practice makes perfect.”
Raise smart kid, website on covering video games, citing cognitive
neuroscientist Daphne Bavelier, who studies the effect of action games at
Switzerland’s University of Geneva and the University of Rochester in New York,
suggests
Video
games can improve your kid’s decision making speed. People who played action-based
video and computer games made decisions 25% faster than others without
sacrificing accuracy, according to a study from the University of Rochester.
Other studies suggests that most expert gamers can make choices and act on them
up to six times a second—four times faster than most people, and can pay
attention to more than six things at once without getting confused, compared to
only four by the average person. Surprisingly, the violent action games that
often worry parents most had the strongest beneficial effect on the brain.
Even though violent
games may be the target of many debates and conflicts studies have shown that
with some aspects of these violent games proved to be the most useful and by
playing games within moderation a person can better adapt to the needs of other
parts of the brain.
Video games should be used in school to not only
enhance a student’s brain but to further develop them and help them through
their path and career in life. Parents may let their children play games but
only in moderation so a child’s brain will not be lopsided. The question I
asked in the early part of this paper, “are video games harmful and are video
games in education worth investing in?” That answer is still debatable and will
vary from person to person. Video games have always been looked down upon as
vulgar and a waste of time but in this paper I have quoted experts in mental
health and brain development that says otherwise. My personal answer to this
question is, video games can indeed be harmful if used way too much, but that’s
with anything in this world. (Too much candy gives a person belly ache.) Games
in education is a wonderful idea in my opinion due to the beneficial qualities
it can bring to a child. If you want to play games for fun I recommend it. It
could be a small game like, “Bejeweled” or “Sudoku” each has its own way of
helping your brain develop and keep in shape. 
No comments:
Post a Comment