Research Essay - Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people?

Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people? When reading through the question quickly it is easy to assume that the answer is yes. However, to full understand the topic analysis and research needs to be done in these three main areas. These areas are: the medical and behavioural evidence that takes a stance against the use of video games, the point of view from the gamers and gaming industry, as well as the medical and behavioural experts that favour video games as a means of mental and educational development. Such a loaded question requires a detailed and in depth research from current articles and journals that considers both sides of the argument granting them and their opinions agency before coming to a final conclusion that is reliant upon the facts found within the research.

As mentioned previously, the easiest conclusion to the posed question would be a definite yes and this conclusion is shared by most in the medical and educational professions. Barrie Gunter states in The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked that, “…the role of video gaming in the lives of children and teenagers can be destructive for both their physical and mental health, a problem that needs to be rectified” (p. 74, 1998). The negative physical and mental impacts that have been link by professionals to excessive video gaming include but are not limited to childhood and ongoing obesity, diabetes, depression and the development of a reclusive nature, RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and addiction/misperception of reality and are the primary reason for the general disapproval of video gaming (Eunson, 2009 pp.347). In addition to this while many people and professionals in this category disapprove of the use of video and computer games all together there is still evidence that they acknowledge that in moderation it is an acceptable means of entertainment and sometimes education (Boyle & Hibberd, 2005 pp.36-37).

In a debate about the affects of excessive gaming, a voice should obviously be thrown to the actual people involved: the gamers and the gaming industry. Because research consistently shows that “most popular video games are violent and because of the potential harm to children, youth and society of this negative influence” (Dill, 2007 pp.3), much video game research has focused on the effects of violent video games. However, the believe shared by many gamers, parents of gamers and of course the industry itself is that “games with positive content show positive effects” (Vedantam 2011). For example, playing a dancing video game can help children lose weight and devices like Wii and the Nintendo DS have been proven by the same people that condemn such devices to aid and a better learning from early childhood to adulthood. One person who agrees with this theory and relates it to the belief of society’s continual moral panic is Associate Professor and self confessed gamer Christopher Ferguson who writes in his article ‘Video games are not the enemy’:

“Social panics have surfaced over everything from waltzes, jazz music, Elvis Presley and comic books to Harry Potter, Dungeons and Dragons, rap and now video games. Nothing came of those panics and nothing is coming of video games” (2011).

Interestingly enough when investigating the ‘Against’ counter-argument from medical and behavioural research groups that believe that children’s use of video games ”may improve a player's manual dexterity and computer literacy” (Gentile et al. p. 19, 2004). These people reason that the use of video games can be beneficial in assisting with behavioural issues, mental health and in some cases physical issues in children. Some even recognise the use of computer and video games as a viable tool in learning literacy, numeracy and combating ethical and moralistic issues. For instance Dr John Irvine demonstrates his beliefs on the matter in Thriving at School, “There is little doubt that the multimedia nature of computer games can make a maths drill fun and encourage and promote all sorts of learning and thinking in our children” (2000). Deepa Kartha who shares Dr Irvine’s view also adds that moderation and supervision is crucial in helping video gaming remaining a feasible and beneficial learning tool, “…use computers and video games wisely to complement the basic learning activities that concerned parents have pursued in the past” (2011, pp. 26)

Video games have both positive and negative effects on health. The effects however vary immensely depending on the types of games played and the frequency of play (Damien 2010). Certain adverse effects can be caused by other factors in conjunction with excessive play of games, but can usually be corrected by living a healthier lifestyle (i.e. regular breaks and mixing video/computer gaming in with other ‘active’ activities). The positives of the effects of video games on health also vary depending on the type of game played and its frequency. However, as the evidence above shows that despite their differences, all research parties included in this research agree that, as Williams says, like everything else we do moderation is key (2011). In conclusion, after reviewing the research throughout and considering all opinions it seems that yes, extensive use of video and computer games impact the health the health of children and teenagers both mentally and physically. However the solution to this problem is that moderation and supervision is essential to the constructive use of video gaming within the lives of children and teenagers to avoid these troubles associated with excessive gaming.

Reference List

Boyle, R & Hibberd, M 2005, ‘Review of research on the impact of violent computer games on young people’, vol.13 , no.2 , pp. 36-40 , viewed 17 October 2011, via Google Scholar.

Damien, D 2010, How video games affect health, viewed 15 October 2011, <http://www.gameinnovator.com/health.php>.

Dill, K 2007, ‘The influence of video games on youth’, Implications for Learning in the New Millennium, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 3-19, viewed 15 October 2011, via JSTOR Databases.

Eunson, B 2009, Communicating in the 21^st century, Wiley Publications, Milton, Queensland.

Ferguson, C 2011, Video games are not the enemy, viewed 15 October 2011, <http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/55382.html>.

Gentile, D. A., Lynch, P., Linder, J. & Walsh, D. 2004. The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviours, and school performance, viewed 24 September 2011, via Journal of Adolescence.

Gunter, B 1998. The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked, viewed 24 September 2011, via Google Scholar.

Irvine, J 2000, Thriving at school: a practical guide to help your child enjoy the crucial school years, Simon and Schuster, Roseville, New South Wales.

Kartha, D 2011, Effects of video games on children, viewed 15 October 2011, <http://www.buzzle.com/articles/effects-of-video-games-on-children.html>.

Vedantam, S 2011, It’s a duel: how do violent video games affect kids?, viewed 15 October 2011, <http://www.npr.org/2011/07/07/137660609/its-a-duel-how-do-violent-video-games-affect-kids>.

Williams, M 2011, Video games: Addiction and Medical Issues, <http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=243&np=295&id=2375>.

Week 9 - Tute Task

·        Sign an e-petition.

<a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43687.html">Save Gold Coast Parklands Show Grounds Petition | GoPetition</a>

I signed the Save Gold Coast Parklands Show Grounds petition, I was the third person to sign on for it.

·        What is Barak Obama up to today? Can you send him a message about the importance of freedom on the internet?

According to his twitter account, on the 21^st of September 2011 Barack addressed the United Nations General Assembly. The link to the video feed: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

·        What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")?

The Australian Government's plans to censor the internet with the program dubbed 'Clean Feed'. It is a filter with the intended target of protecting children by compulsory censorship of all websites showing child pornography and other material considered offensive.

Info from Anti Clean Feed Petition - http://nocleanfeed.com/

·       When will the NBN get to your place? What are the benefits?

The National Broadband Network make its way to Brisbane in the second rollout after its installed in the ‘trial town’ of Townsville. The service has been promised to deliver positive improvements for the Australian public in the form of superior access to business and job opportunities, health, education and government services.

Official National Broadband Network Site - http://www.nbn.gov.au/

·       Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.

In respective order Mayor Ron Clarke, Peter Lawlor and Steven Ciabo are the current local, state and federal representatives for my area.

·        Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your federal member spoke in parliament.

September 15th 2011 was the last time Ciabo spoke to and with the House of Representatives and it was about the crime surge within the Gold Coast region of Moncrieff.

Week 9 - Response To Content

Slowly approaching is the Research Essay, for which we can choose to research and discuss any of seven topic questions or create our own. After some contemplation the essay question I connected to the most was: Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people? When reading through the question quickly it is easy to assume that the answer is yes, however to full understand the topic analysis and research needs to be done in these three main areas.

1.     A greater reasoning of the key words in the question to grasp a better understanding of the argument as a whole. For example how do words or phrases such as extensive, adverse, young people play a part in narrowing the topic down to make it a bigger issue?

2.     Investigating the ‘For’ argument i.e. Barrie Gunter states in his book The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked that, “…the role of video gaming in the lives of children and teenagers can be destructive for both their physical and mental health, a problem that needs to be rectified.” (p. 74, 1998)

3.     Then investigating the ‘Against’ counter-argument from a few medical and behavioural research groups that children’s use of video games can be ”may improve a player's manual dexterity and computer literacy” (p. 19, 2004)

4.     Drawing any and all comparisons or similarities between the two in the attempt to reach a conclusion   

The question/task requires a detailed and in depth research from the most current papers and asks that both sides of the argument be granted agency and their opinions be taken into consideration before coming to a final conclusion that is reliant upon the facts found within the research. It is my intention to begin my research into this topic through use of online journals and communication publications with the probable support of news article and official statistics.

Gentile, D. A., Lynch, P., Linder, J. & Walsh, D. 2004. The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance, viewed 24 September 2011, via Journal of Adolescence.

Gunter, B 1998. The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked, viewed 24 September 2011, via Google Scholar.

Week 8 - Tute Task

Over weeks 8 and 9 we finalised our ideas and began to create and put together our audio visual presentation. Below are the lists of components (parts of the presentation), the software and online programs used to create and assemble it and the key obstacle we faced as a group to complete the task well and on time.

Components of the presentation:

·       News report video

·       eHarmony I love… video

·       Images (Man and Logos)

·       Text (Rules and Guidelines)

·       eHarmony – Mad TV spoof ad

Software or programs used:

·       Creative Commons, eHarmony, Zoosk, RSVP and YouTube for initial research on the topic

·       Screen-o-matic – to capture video footage from YouTube, Vimeo and eHarmony

·       Windows Movie Maker – to edit footage together

·       Prezi – to present and put together footage and text

Major Obstacles:

·       Scheduling – getting all three task members together to brainstorm and create our idea.

·       Working against a tight timeframe, deadline Week 9.

·       Screen-o-matic – trying to record the videos with little to no background noise posed as a difficulty as the software is very sensitive and takes a while to get right.

·       Attempting to decide what and what not to leave into the final product to get the tone and message right.

·       Shannen’s computer got rid of Windows Movie Maker, so the editing took much longer than expected and had to be done in class in week 9.

·       COPYRIGHT –this was a big issue for us to overcome as mentioned in previous blogs. We had decided to use Prezi to conquer our problems with copyright infringements but was unaware that this solution was only applicable is the video footage we were intending to use was in its original unedited condition. Our only solution available due to the closing deadline was to continue but not upload it to our Blogs or YouTube as originally planned, but instead email it to our tutor and keep it with the intention of only using it for private viewing as the pubic alternative would get use into trouble. If we had had more time on our hands we could have perhaps written to the ordinal owners of the video footage that we used and asked their permission to use them in our presentation.    

·       The music overlay we were hoping to put over the presentation was canned due to the fact that it would no longer be exported into one video due to the copywriting issues mentioned above.

***Our presentation has been emailed to Lauren by Shannen.***

Week 7 - Tute Task

Unfortunately neither I nor another member of our group could make it to the tutorial for this week, which posed as yet another hurdle for us to overcome. However in our absence our remaining member was able to discuss with the tutor our ideas and the problems we might encounter with them. We found that unless we could find our relevant video footage on an open licensed site like Creative Commons or unlicensed YouTube clips copyright was going to be our major concern. With some research and assistance from our tutor is was decided that the free online presentation site Prezi was the best route to avoid our copyrighting issues as anything that goes into Prezi presentation removes that problem.

Week 7 - Response To Content

Week 6 - Tute Task

This week we were split up into groups of three and set upon the task of creating an audio visual presentation/video addressing some aspect of New Communication Technology. In our group we choose to do ours on the hot topic of online dating and the sites associated with them such as eHarmony and RSVP.

In our initial brainstorm we thought through a couple of ideas, with us all circuiting around the idea of  people editing their personalities, interests, beliefs and even their faces with the hope of meeting that special someone. One of our main ideas was influenced by the now infamous Evolution advertisement by beauty giant Dove. (linked above) We were ambitious and liked the idea of creating a scenario situation were two people meet online and one or both of them had altered their profile picture to the point of complete misrecognition, with a similar ‘Dove’ video sequence showing this.

However after looking through Creative Commons and finding little to none relevant materials as well as the conflicting problems of time began to think of alternative ideas. For example, filming and editing together clips from different eHarmony members and completely exaggerating their online lies e.g. man cropped identical twin out of profile photo etc. We decided to do some more research before settling on one idea.