Bulk of Essay (Not Finished, will be updated tomos)

Do violent video games have an effect on gamers and do playing video games affect their learning?

This is the question that will be answered either correctly or wrongly on both sides, starting with the first part ‘Do violent video games have an effect on gamers?’ There’s always a wonder if violent acts and crimes are caused more by the violent contents and images that playing violent video games put out. In some games today, the player can walk out in a virtual world and pull out a gun and kill the first person the player see’s or steal a car that takes the player’s liking, the player knows that they can do this and get away with it because after all it’s only just a game, but what if the player takes these sort of images that the player is seeing and uses what they see in the real world?

Gee (2003) says in a section of his book “When people learn to play video games, they are learning a new literacy.” Gee isn’t talking about the kind of literacy such as reading and writing, instead he’s talking about the ‘visual literacy’ which involves such things like images, symbols, graphs, diagrams and etc, this kind of literacy allows us to ‘read’ the images off an advert, for example, when you see a advert advertising chocolate, you know that the advert is about food and not about an animal. So for a violent video game where the images are that of killing, stealing and taking drugs, what’s to stop players thinking that if it’s easy to do in the game, why not do it in real life? A question like this, even for a young player where information soaks into the brain like a sponge, could lead to crimes and violent acts in the future or even at the current age.

To find out if violent video games really do increase aggressive behaviour, Anderson and Dill (2000) conducted a study of 210 participants which involved them playing two games for 15 minutes and then filling out a questionnaire, they also measured the strength of the sound that the participants did towards their opponents, the two games that were involved in this study was ‘Myst’ (A non-violent game) and ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ (A violent game). The results they gathered from the study showed that the people who played ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ and lost emitted a louder sound then those who played ‘Myst’, they also found out that violent games underpin aggressive thoughts and that the men was most aggressive. All the results they gathered helped support their conclusion that players of violent computer games exhibit more violent behaviour in the real world. So there’s no doubt about it, playing violent video games really does increase violent behaviour within the real world, but right now you’re probably thinking that they only played the games for 15 minutes and so really doesn’t prove that violent video games cause violent acts of crime.

That’s where an article from Layton (2008) on the internet helps back this up, in her article she talks about an event that happened at a High School in Colorado in 1999, two students opened fire within the school shooting 20 people and killing 13, a teacher’s wife who’s husband was among the dead filed a lawsuit. The media revealed that the two students played a lot of violent video games such as ‘Mortal Kombat’, ‘Doom’ and ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ and had also watched a violent film before doing their violent act called ‘The Basketball Diaries’ which involved a character using a shotgun to kill students at his High School. So after being pumped up from playing the violent video games and having the images of shooting and killing from both the games and film, this could of helped with the provoke of their criminal act in the High School, maybe such a thing wouldn’t of happened if parents are more strict on the age restriction on the front of the video games and films.

Literature Review

Literature Review

Gee (2003) states “When people learn to play video games, they are learning a new literacy” but not the type of literacy that involves reading and writing, Gee (2003) describes that it’s also about the ‘Visual Literacy’ which involves how people ‘read’ images, symbols, graphs and diagrams. When it comes to violent video games where the images are that of killing and stealing cars, young people to teenagers playing the game could be in a way ‘brainwashed’ into thinking that you can do this in real life and get away with it. This can be backed up from Layton’s (2008) article where she talks about an event where two students opened fire in their High School in 1999 shooting at 20 people and killing 13. A teacher’s wife filed a lawsuit and found out that the students played a lot of violent video games from ‘Doom’ to ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ and also watched ‘The Basketball Diaries’ where a character uses a shotgun to kill students at his high school. With the violent images coming from the games and the film to influence the student’s doings, it seems that the brain was stimulated to do this violent event. Anderson and Dill (2000) conducted a study using different methods to find out about aggression and violent video games, in one of their studies which involved the participants to play ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ for 15 minutes, they said ‘players of violent computer games exhibit more violent behaviour in the real world’, this could be one of the many reasons why the events happened from Layton’s (2008) article.

References


Gee, P. 2003 "What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy" Palgrave Macmillan

Layton, J. 2008 "Do violent video games lead to real violence?" [Internet] http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/video-game-violence.htm

Nielsen, S. 2003 "Playing With Fire - How do computer games affect the player?" [Internet] http://resources.eun.org/insafe/datorspel_Playing_with.pdf

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis says my Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, below I have done the SWOT analysis for myself:

Strengths

• Good understanding knownleage of IT skills
• Good at problem solving
• Very socialable with others
• Friendly
• Always thinking of ideas that are 'out of the box'

Weaknesses

• English
• Understanding subjects and the meaning behind them
• Always drifting off when I don't want to

Opportunities

• Adding onto my IT knownleadge and skills
• Better career
• The understanding of the IT business world and how it works

Threats

• Not being able to complete the work
• Getting to uni on time
• Car breaks down
• Spending loads of time on work and still failing
  

The VARK Questionnaire

In the VARK questionnaire I was identified as a Visual, Read/Write and Kinesthetic type of learner and I was a bit surprised when I understood what all three of them meant. Visual is as it says, you learn from looking at graphs, pictures etc and this is true for me, I can look at a graph and take in all of the information needed or look at a picture and remember what was there. Kinesthetic is where you learn by doing, which is also true for me, over the past I have learnt a great more deal of information by actual doing what needs to be done instead of being shown, its like riding a bike, once you done it, you never forget.

The one that shocked me the most was Read/Write and I got the highest for it. I'm not much of a reader, I don't even read books, and the only time I read is when it’s for something important or something I'm interested in. I am a big writer though, maybe that’s why it's so high? When I was in secondary school, I loved it in English when we had to write a story about anything so I guess that’s the reason.

My least favourite learning style is learning from a book, I don't though why that is, the information just doesn't seem to sink in, unless if I'm interested in the book I'm reading. I can try and improve this by probably writing down important notes on sticky notes and placing them in the areas that are important so instead of reading the whole paragraphs again and getting bored, I can just quick read the sticky notes so that little bit of information can sink in.

Nathan Bright - Learning Line

The primary school I mostly studied at was Hilltop Junior in Wickford town, when I started secondary school I went to Beauchamps High School that was also in Wickford right next to Hilltop school. While at secondary school I joined the air cadets and learned many useful skills, such as navigation, cooking, team work, scuba diving and of course the obvious flying small aircraft, I didn't gain any ranks when I was there but all the skills and experience I got from being in the air cadets was a more greater achievement then any rank out there.

While in secondary school, I took three options, History, Geography and Triple Science, all being subjects I enjoyed doing and learnt a lot from. After my GCSE's I went on to further my education at SEEVIC College doing a BTEC National Diploma in IT and also learned how to drive. Once I had finished college, I took a gap year in which I did a City and Guilds course with ITEC and took on a part time job, now I'm at Anglia Ruskin University studying a Bsc Hons in Business Information Systems.