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Juan Miguel Martinez
ENGL 1302; 223
Mr. Powers
April 3rd 2024
Position Paper 1st draft.
Video games are one of, if not the most popular forms of entertainment in the online
world right now. In an article by Sagari Gongala, she states that “a study found out that 97% of
teens and children indulge in playing video games and mobile gaming for at least an hour a day
in the US” (Gongala). So many teenagers, and adults alike are engaging in the almost addictive
activity, that is playing video games. Seeing many children, teenagers, and adults alike play
video games when they have free time, some people from the outsider’s perspective, may believe
that most, if not all video games, are harmful to the human mind and can have negative side
effects if played too often, or for a long period of time. These thoughts of video games having
negative effects on the minds of children and teenagers, may be an even stronger belief when it
comes to violent video games and link the violence in a video game, to real world violence
happening around the world, being caused by young people. Although several articles do
mention potential negative side effects of playing video games, there are also many articles and
studies that show that not every single video game has negative side effects on the brain of a
teenager or child. With these many articles hovering around in the fictional world we call the
internet, many people cannot help but argue on which one of these statements is true. Personally,
I believe that video games, are not a cause of violence, but on the contrary, they not only
have close to zero negative effects, they can have positive effects on the player.
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To begin, many people play video games to escape the real world that they are in.
Escaping reality is no easy task, yet video games help these people escape their reality in a quick,
yet entertaining way. Sometimes, this escapism from real life, is not to get an inspiration to
commit acts of violence in the real world, rather to simply get a little enjoyment. One may
believe that escaping to violent video games may increase the levels of aggression on people, but
in a study conducted by Lukas Leopold Lengersdorff, et al, they set out to find whether playing
violent video games decrease levels of empathy in men. The research got eighty-nine men to
play a modified version of the violent video game Grand Theft Auto V. One set of males had to
damage as many NPC’s (non-playable characters) as possible within a set time limit, while the
other set of males had to take as many pictures of NPC’s as possible. At the end of the
experiment, the researchers concluded that, both of the groups of males “did not show
decreased empathy for another person’s pain or decreased responses to violent imagery”
(Lengersdorff, et al). One other article that mentions how there is little to no increase in
aggression with violent video games, is one authored by Christopher Ferguson. In this article,
Ferguson goes to find out whether there are good or bad side effects of playing violent video
games. Ferguson goes on how it is “not hard to ‘link’ video game playing with violent acts if one
wishes to do so” meaning that the public will most likely link any violent crimes to violent video
games. Although, Ferguson goes on to say that, after he conducted his study, that “violent video
game exposure is associated with increased visuospatial cognition” (314) and how the results do
not “support a relationship between violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior”
(314). Clearly, there is no great link to video games and violence on adults, but what about the
effects that video games may have on the youth?
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With the popularity of video games rapidly increasing, of course children and teenagers,
young and mature, will be attracted to video games and their entertaining mechanics to keep
themselves occupied. Although not very common in young children, young and mature teenagers
are more likely to be attracted to violent video games. With many teens being attracted to these
violent video games, one cannot help but wonder if violent video games may have a negative
effect on the unmatured minds of teenagers. In an article authored by Naïma Gradi, et al, they set
out to find just that. Naïma, et al, describe the process they are going to take whether or not
action-like video games may have an effect on the teenage mind. Once conducting the
experiment, Naïma, et al, go on to the results where they say, “While video games are often
considered as appealing and rewarding to the population, their potential to augment engagement
and adherence rates of mental health interventions is yet under-documented” (Naïma Gradi et
al.). However, later on in the article, they also say how “it is possible that some positive effects
of the games on mental health and cognitive outcomes be even more protracted” (Naïma Gradi et
al.). This article proves that although there are some potential negative effects on teenagers, there
could be some posiutive side effects to playing video games as well. In a similar article, authored
by Marzo RR, et al, they conduct another study to talk about effects of video games on the
behavior of teenagers. Over all, Marzo, et al, have to say that, “the results show that there is
relationship between the video games and the aggressive behavior even the prosocial behavior as
well” (182), and how “video games tend to lead prosocial behaviors tendencies and that
prosocial tendencies tend to lead to selection of prosocial games” (182). Even so not only do
video games not have negative side effects, they also can have potentially positive side effects.
Video games don’t only have negative side effects, they can also have some positive side
effects that are beneficial to the brain. In an article set out to find some positive side effects that
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video games may have on children and teenagers authored by Filiz Aydemir, he goes to mention
how “Children are inevitably affected by technological developments. Along with these
developments, children’s playing equipment, playing habits, and game perceptions has also
changed” (AYDEMİR). So, society and the toys children play with, has in fact changed a lot
over the past couple of years. Later on in the article, ADYEMIR goes to mention some of the
positive side effects video games may have on children, these effects include, concentration over
a long period of time, improvement in decision-making and problem solving skills, short-term
memory, “distractibility, comprehension, perception, reasoning, and visual skills can be
improved through these games” (AYDEMİR).
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Work Cited
AYDEMİR, Filiz. “Digital Games and Their Effects on Children.” Adıyaman Üniversitesi Sosyal
Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, vol. 0, no. 41, Aug. 2022, pp. 40–69,
https://doi.org/10.14520/adyusbd.1116868.
Ferguson, Christopher, “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A Meta-analytic Review of Positive
and Negative Effects of Violent Video Games”, Springer Science+Business Media, 78,
no. 10, 4 October 2007, pages 309-316.
Gongala, Sagari. “Positive and Negative Effects of Video Games on Teenagers.” MomJunction,
13 July 2018, www.momjunction.com/articles/effects-of-video-games-on-
teenagers_00352668/.
Lukas Lengersdorff, et al. “Neuroimaging and Behavioral Evidence That Violent Video Games
Exert No Negative Effect on Human Empathy for Pain and Emotional Reactivity to
Violence.” ELife, vol. 12, eLife Sciences Publications Ltd, Nov. 2023,
https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.84951.
Marzo RR, et all. Effects of playing violent video games on teenagers’ behavior- A cross
sectional study from Malaysia. Indian J Comm Health. 2019;31(2):179-184
Naïma Gradi, et al. “Evaluating the Effect of Action-like Video Game Play and of Casual Video
Game Play on Anxiety in Adolescents with Elevated Anxiety: Protocol for a Multi-
Center, Parallel Group, Assessor-Blind, Randomized Controlled Trial.” BMC Psychiatry,
vol. 24, no. 1, BioMed Central, Jan. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05515-7.
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