Is this you? Someone you know?
So... I went to the Video Game Symposium at BYU yesterday. I was able to hear a great presentation from Dr. Sarah Coyne on the negative influence that violent video games can have on us. Her research showed that playing violent video games was related to higher amounts of physical aggression in Emerging Adults.
In this room full of many "Gamers" I might add, it would seem that a handful of them blew this off and didn't think it was an issue.
I, first hand, have seen this. My brother and I used to play a ton of video games when I was in Jr. High... a lot more than we should have. Many times we would get in fights while playing these games... then, my brother went on his mission and the last thing he "jokingly" said was, "Well... um... don't go to crazy with the new Nintendo system that comes out". The last thing I hear from my brother were those lines... ya... I completely stopped playing video games after that.
It bothers me when people ignore the research and feel it doesn't apply to them.
Well... with a room full of BYU and LDS students, I decided to see what the Prophets and Apostles of today had to say...
Elder M. Russell Ballard explained: “One of the ways Satan … weakens your spiritual strength is by encouraging you to spend large blocks of your time doing things that matter very little. I speak of such things as . . . playing video games night in and night out.”
"For some, they can become addictive, leading to lost spirituality, lost opportunities, and lost relationships."
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2009/08/just-a-game?lang=eng
The people that have the problem are usually those that feel there is NOT a problem...
Example - I talked to a couple people at school about this, they said that last year Dr. Brad Bushman came to BYU. He had done similar studies on the negative impact of violent media... He said that a lot of people said violent media was not a problem because "they hadn't killed anyone"...
Might I add... this researcher had received death threats from several people because of his research.
(Kind of ironic don't ya think?)
Elder Ballard further stated, "Others resist the idea that their online gaming is a problem, insisting that they are only relaxing, or that since they play with other people, it’s a social activity. Still others argue that since it’s a game, it cannot be addictive."
Here are some of the problems though:
"News reports include stories of broken marriages, lost employment, failed health, even children removed from parents because of criminal neglect caused by the parents’ excessive online gaming. 1 We personally know of young men who have forfeited mission opportunities because, they say, their online gaming group needs them, and they simply cannot be gone for two years."
“Virtual reality must not become [our] reality.”
Elder Bednar - "Things as They Really Are"
What do you think? Can video games become an addiction? Do you think violent video games can influence people to be more physically aggressive?
As a NON gamer, video game addictions have always seemed blatantly obvious to me. I understand that there can be a place, in moderation, for video games in people's lives, but it's a slippery slope. When I was a kid (my dad works on graphics, so we decided we ought to have SOMETHING he'd worked on--pretty ironic) we got one video game ever. We never had a console or anything. And as sad as this is, that little Harry Potter video game addicted ALL of us so badly! It was all we wanted to do! And if we weren't playing it, we were watching it. One day my mom told my little brother to get off the computer and he pitched the biggest screaming tantrum I'd ever seen, and we all looked at each other and said "...wow. What is happening here?" And we put it away and never used it again. I can't say that my gaming friends are violent, but they certainly find violence more amusing (this goes for lovers of action movies as well, I've found). They're the ones that walked out of Dark Knight laughing about the disappearing pencil trick, which I was sickened. I wished I could have gone to Dr. Coyne's hour Friday morning, but I was working so I had to go to a later one. Here's irony--three boys sitting behind me played video games on their phones the ENTIRE TIME.
ReplyDeleteOk. Here we go.
ReplyDeleteyes, I think video games can be addictive, just like most other things (especially tootsie rolls) Are they pure evil and from the devil? No I don't think so.
I thought long and hard about what I learned at the symposium. I came to this conclusion: whether video games are evil or not depends on our reason for using them. If we use them to leave the world behind and abandon our lives, yes, they are evil. If we use them to enrich our relationships with other, then they are awesome.
I have found that if we use them for selfish desires, they become addictive. If we use them for better purposes, we can grow tired of them when the purpose is fulfilled.
Concerning violence, I think VG's can have a strong influence on whether someone becomes physically aggressive in life. Imagine this: You play a shoot-em up game. Your goal is to kill as many people as possible in 3 minutes. The high you feel as you play...what plays a part in that? Most likely the action of shooting people and snapping their necks. You start to accept that as ok. Now I'm not saying that your next stop would be at the local gun store and you'll shoot up the next crowd you see. But things like a punch to the arm or slap across the face might be seen as ok now. Little by little, we grow to accept such actions