What are Children Exposed to When They Play Video Games?
Informative Speech
Shelby Hersem
Various parents speculate as to why their child is violent and short-fused at home. The media claims that video games are stealing children’s innocence and patience, leaving parents wondering, “Is my child’s behavior triggered by the first-person-shooter games heard in the living room?” According to the ESRB, video game players can be shown fantastical mild violence to graphic sexual content across their six rating categories. After the 1999 Columbine shooting, parents frantically searched for the reasoning behind the shooters’ violent behavior and reached their conclusion: video games. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states that, “Violent behavior in children and adolescents can include a wide range of behaviors: explosive temper tantrums, physical aggression, fighting, threats or attempts to hurt others (including thoughts of wanting to kill others), use of weapons, cruelty toward animals, fire setting, intentional destruction of property and vandalism.” Through the past decade, America has seen a horrible amount of violence in schools, churches, and other public areas due to terrorism and political fragmentation--so what are our children exposed to when they play video games?
When the blue screen of a monitor greets the eager eyes of a child, the brain releases dopamine, ensuring an adrenaline rush, a feeling of relief, and joy. Dopamine is the pleasure producing chemical, a neurotransmitter that sends chemical messages to the brain and its nerve cells, but what chemical is released when the child loses a team deathmatch round or runs out of lives due to another player’s advantage on a hill? What chemical is released when the child finally captures the opponent’s flag or secures a checkpoint? The fluctuating rise and fall of happiness from winning and anger from loss has a very high frequency in video games, and researchers aren’t quite sure how to explain the cerebral effects of such a capricious inconstancy on children (Ferguson).
Caitlyn Gibson, a journalist for The Washington Post, states that “One 1998 study showed that video games raise the level of dopamine in the brain by about 100 percent, roughly the same increase triggered by sex. (And that was nearly 20 years ago — today’s games have evolved far beyond what was available then.) More recent research found measurable changes in the parts of the brain linked to cognitive function and emotional control after study subjects spent one-week playing violent video games.” Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has proposed a new “gaming disorder,” and, according to Professor Chris Ferguson and Patrick Markey, “Some researchers even claim that these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence on the brain — that they are ‘digital heroin’ or ‘digital pharmakeia.’” The subjects who played video games for a prolonged period of time showed positive effects, so what are parents upset about?
Unfortunately, there is a vast amount of misinformation spread through social media, news outlets, and general opinion. Daniel Arkin from CBS News found that “[In 2011,] The Supreme Court dismissed any link between game violence and real violence when it ruled, 7 to 2, that California could not block the sale of violent games to kids.” Donald Trump, after hearing of the Parkland High School shooting, labeled video games as ‘gruesome’ and ‘grisly’ for a shaken America to hear (Draper). Moments after President Trump spoke, another newscaster interviewed a teenage survivor, asking how he felt about the situation: “My friends and I have been playing video games our whole life and never … have we ever felt driven or provoked by those actions in those games to do something as horrible as this” (Arkin). Earlier, I mentioned Professor Chris Ferguson, who did an intensive study on ‘gaming disorder’ and public unrest towards the gaming community; he proposed that there is a common theme of older generations blaming the young adults for problems. The American Psychological Association created the term ‘gaming disorder’ as an invitation for new research to emerge, but have borrowed symptoms from addictions like gambling, alcoholism, and other substance abuse disorders. Ferguson argues that the media has manufactured the first hobby to become a disorder.
When looking into the chemicals and neuropsychology of video gaming, children show a high level of improvement in areas like coordination, memory, social skills, and concentration (Eugenio). Furthermore, children who are encouraged to play video games for learning like Jumpstart and even the educational version of Minecraft, understand the learning material and want to learn more. Additionally, when an adolescent returns home from an exhausting day filled with notes and lectures, they can review through minigames on Quizlet or test their memory in a game of Kahoot. The mental stimulation supplied from a regular video game is more than a child staring at a screen: there are maneuvers, logic, and tactics involved when playing; it’s not any different than a game of tag (Eugenio).
Surely the average American has heard the earworm, “Rated E for everyone,” on the television for an upcoming release of a children’s video game, but do parents understand what a “Rated M for mature” game entails? The ESRB states that E games, “contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language.” Meanwhile, M games, “may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.” Imagine little Jimmy, the classic fifth grader who loves to play online with friends from school, asks for a copy of Grand Theft Auto V for Christmas. Does Santa/Mom know about the prostitutes parading around, countless opportunities for murder, and the act of literally mowing down crowds of pedestrians?
Children are getting their hands on games that are out of their age range more often than not, but does this create a violent child or does it introduce them to things that they would see in a matter of a few years? This leaves an open-ended question that really, only parents of such children can answer and justify through the purchase of rated M games. I urge those who oversee what children do after school and on the weekends, mainly video games, of course, to do their research, form their own, unswayed, individual opinions; for the love of video games, Call-of-Duty will not turn your child into a killer.
Annotated Bibliography
Arkin, Daniel. “Here's What We Know about the Links between Video Games and Violence.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 2 Mar. 2018, www.nbcnews.com/news/us- news/here-s-what-we-know-about-links-between-video-games-n852776.
I chose to include this source in my research because it offers a lot of statistical data about recent shootings, video games, and the opinions of gamers on current events. The website also provides me with quotes from the National Rifle Association and President Trump, who argue that violence is triggered by video games.
Draper, Kevin. “Video Games Aren't Why Shootings Happen. Politicians Still Blame Them.” The New York Times, 5 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/sports/trump-violent- video-games-studies.html.
This article strongly argues that there is no link between violence in America, as well as shootings, and video games. The author refutes quotes from President Trump and the lieutenant governor of Texas. I plan to use this website to provide me with more information about the true beginning of the argument against gaming, school shootings, and public opinion on video games as a whole.
Eugenio, Sheila. “Public Access - 8 Cognitive Benefits of Playing Video Games for Kids.” Engadget, Public Access, 9 Feb. 2017, www.engadget.com/2017/02/09/8-cognitive- benefits-of-playing-video-games-for-kids/.
This article is important to my speech because it provides me with information on the cerebral benefits of playing video games and can negate ideas that video games negatively impact children.
Ferguson, Christopher J., and Patrick Markey. "Video Games Aren't Addictive.” The New York Times, 02 Apr. 2017. Proquest, www. explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/ document/ 2258149764?accountid=338.
Ferguson and Markey go deeper than other articles into the chemical releases shown in the brain while video games are played. Their article is crucial to my research and thesis because they bring important and never before seen arguments about addiction in general. In recent studies, there are suggestions that gaming addictions are as damaging as a heroin addiction, but as Ferguson said himself, a depressed person doesn’t have a bed addiction.
Gibson, Caitlyn. “Video Games Are More Addictive than Ever. This Is What Happens When Kids Can't Turn Them off.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 7 Dec. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2016/12/07/video-games-are-more-addictive-than-ever-this-is-what-happens-when-kids-can't-turn-them-off/.
Gibson provides a very thorough and emotional memoir of two parents and their son with ADD who had a troubling history of relationships with his peers at school. After reading a small amount about his upbringing, I can only assume that Byrne’s parents never tried to give Byrne counseling or treatment for his anxiety and ADD. He was an extremely intelligent and hardworking young boy who really just had a hard time making friends because of his different, well, hardware.
Byrne grew up with great grades and was rewarded with a laptop and was gifted an Xbox from a relative. Perhaps it is wrong of me to speculate, but I don’t believe that Byrne’s parents tried to regulate his gaming habits before it was too late. Instead, they waited until it was too late and then shipped him off to the middle of nowhere where he could be “solved.” As a 17 year old who returned from the boarding camp with a healthy mindset, his parents gawked at the idea of their teenage boy playing games for one to two days a week. This article can provide me with some insight into the worry of parents.
“Ratings Guide.” ESRB Ratings, Entertainment Software Rating Board, www.esrb.org/ ratings-guide/.
This webpage helps me understand and solidify my section about ratings for video games, specifically the games for mature and child audiences.
“Violent Behavior in Children and Adolescents.”American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, no. 55. Dec. 2015, www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_ for_Families/FFF-Guide/Understanding-Violent-Behavior-In-Children-and-Adolescents-055.aspx.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offers a wide variety of information to both adolescents and adults about depression, violence, ADHD, and many other topics relating to mental health. This citation specifically brings light to the causes of violence shown in children and provides the reader with a brief insight into preventing violent outburst--video games are never mentioned. I want to use this website to open my thesis and to explain violent behaviors and the causes of such acts in adolescents and children.