Are Video Games Turning Your Teenager Into A Robot?
Written by Jori Meyer, Posted on , in Section Teens & Tweens
These days, jam packed with technology, our youth and video games are closer than ever. Video games, especially violent ones, have quite the thrashed reputation. Coined as the reason the younger generation is disobedient, lazy, unmotivated and more recently...turning into murderers using the same violence in real life as they've seen while spending hours in front of a glowing screen.
But what if I said non-violent games actually bring out more aggression than the "horrible and mind corrupting", violent first person shooter games where you play in combat and kill hundreds?
What if I even went as far as saying Dance Dance Revolution was worse?
Players stand on a sort of platform and hit colored arrows laid out in a cross with their feet to various musical and visual cues. With precise timing, you can reach higher and higher levels with better letter grade scores. A screen in front of you with arrows moving from bottom to top as you try to match your stomps and arrows. There's almost never any talking or emotion required. Kind of dehumanizing, right? Maybe even robotic to spend hours and hours on end doing the same thing over and over again.
I've heard a lot of talk about behavioral issues and the link to violent video games. How the 20-year-old, Adam Lanza, Sandy Hook School Shooter had played video games like Call of Duty and StarCraft and somehow that had to be the reason or a connection as to why he did what he did.
Millions and millions of people play games like Grand Theft Auto, where it is completely acceptable to sit at the top of a hill with a sniper rifle and go at it - get as many head-shots as you can. But not millions and millions of aggravated crime is happening like that in our real life. Why is that?
"Games are about solving problems, and it should tell us something that kids race home from school where they are often bored to get on games and solve problems. Clearly we need to capture that lightning in a bottle." saide Dmitri Williams, Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California
The extent of knowledge about whether or not video games can or will benefit the player is very limited. As is the plausible research of it's harm, not that I'd ever condone ten hours straight of playing.
Moderation is key, just like everything else.
This content brought to you by Resource Realizations, visit their site or call them at 877-705-7841.
