Answer:
From school shootings, to violence in teens, and laziness in teens, these things have all been blamed on video games. This being said, the real question is how much truth is to this. Everybody has their own opinion and they are entitled to that, but factual research will be the basis to this paper.
The issue of video gaming being good or bad has been a topic of interest since the inception of the first video game in the early 20th century. Debates would often concentrate on the violence and chaos induced by video gaming, including the detrimental effects it has on its gamers in all age groups and a few would concentrate on its benefits. Nowadays, it is common to hear about crimes committed by gamers, especially from the teenage age group, in an attempt to recreate the scenes from the games they play.
People often play video games for a variety of reasons, from entertainment, recreation to just to gain some insight on certain genres. Nowadays, people have second thoughts over video gaming, especially parents and experts, as gamers tend to exhibit aggressive and questionable behavior due to the games they play. However, studies have shown that video gaming can actually aid gamers in their physical, mental, social, and emotional capacities that sometimes is hard to learn with other methods; no matter what their genre of preference may be. In a physical aspects, studies have shown that video gaming can actually promote basic skills such as hand-to-eye coordination, motor skills, and the capacity to do things with both hands or ambidextrous.
In a mental aspect, video gaming sharpens the mind of the gamer in terms on how they get information and knowledge, as well as develop analytic and psychological skills that is necessary in real life. Experts have observed that children, who have been exposed to video games, tend to show more experience and proficiency with computers and its applications than those who did not play video games. Video gaming enabled these children, according to the study, to be familiar on how to associate computer functions and parts with those of video game functions, easily developing a method to understand how to work on programs and applications on another system. Experts had agreed that with this improved literacy with computers, video gamers do not need further instructions on how to use known computer applications. Advocates of video gaming also argue that video gaming actually enables gamers, especially children, to think of possible strategies and entice education since video games enable gamers to enter into several scenarios that would require them to perform real-like functions or to answer questions to pass to the next round or receive a certain amount of points. Efficiency is also tested by these video games since players would often need to execute skills and answer questions perfectly to gain perfect scores. Video games even sets gamers into different levels - from easy to hard – to enable them to challenge their strategic skills to complete the game with full completion rate.
Video games also serve as a perfect alternative for gamers to experience or learn certain skills that can be dangerous to experience in real life. Video gaming also offers players to visualize several aspects of life such as overcoming the nature of their decisions, and improve their relationships with their family and friends since some games can enact scenarios that would fit the player’s chosen career or skill.
The potential of video games to improve a person’s physical, mental, social and emotional aspect continues to grow as new techniques and improvements are done to improve gameplay for each gamer in every age group. While it is agreeable that some video games tend to foster negative behaviors such as immorality, violence and aggression; the video gaming market also provides mediums for gamers to improve their skills and behaviors with different gaming genres and storylines that challenges the gamer to succeed.
