Final Blog Project

Final Paper

Do video games kill? That is one question many people believe to be the case about video games. Video games do have big impacts on our lives and affects our society in many ways, but not to the point where anyone will have the mentality to take someone’s life. Video games do have positive and negative influences in our society and to the kids who are playing them; however, with all the negative influences they do not cause violence in the real world. Video games may influence children in negative ways, but they must be taught or learn to understand that this kind of behavior is not tolerated in society and should never be used in a way to harm others. It is okay to joke around and have fun with the violence and that is what video games are for. They are used for entertainment and are exaggerated to extremes where the person playing the game should realize that it should not be taken seriously. Video games do not cause violence in our society today.

            When children are playing video games, it becomes very easy for video games to manipulate their minds in a negative way. Children are unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy and may view the violence they are seeing as an ordinary occurrence. To them, heroes are violent, but are rewarded for their “violent” and heroic behavior and they become role models for youth whom do not understand what the message is being shown to them. In the children’s minds, they think it’s "cool" to carry guns to use to knock off the "bad guys." Typically, this situation translates for using this kind of violence to justify normal everyday activities. Children who have been victimized by any kind offense or in a situation of any misunderstanding may be tempted to use violent means to solve problems and quite possibly take things way too far. Thus, resulting in violence or potentially death. However, I can only think of one incident that involves this kind of behavior and that is the Columbine shootings. This kind of behavior I think is extremely rare where people can act like this from playing and watching video games. Many people believe the kind of behavior that was displayed by the two kids at Columbine developed their behavior from playing violent video games. In an internet article, the writer says, “Although nothing is for certain as to why these boys did what they did, we do know that Harris and Klebold both enjoyed playing the bloody, shoot-'em-up video game Doom, a game licensed by the U.S. military to train soldiers to effectively kill,” (Shin pg. 1). Here is a New York Times article that talks about the Columbine shootings and the involvement of video games…

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/tieing-columbine-to-video-games/

This is a video, of an analysis of the Columbine shootings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA22SKaQ5hU

The video games may have influenced the boys in a completely wrong way but that could not be the ultimate reason. There had to be other factors involved to set off for this kind of behavior. Growing up with violent people will have a big influence on how the child may grow up and could determine how the child may act.

An Internet article at safeyouth.org talks about video games and violence has some statistics that show how violent video games have become. “A 2001 review of the 70 top-selling video games found 89% contained some kind of violence. Almost half of all games (49%) contained serious violence, while 40% contained comic violence. In 41% of the games, violence was necessary for the protagonists to achieve their goals. In 17% of the games, violence was the primary focus of the game itself,” (Media Violence Facts and Statistics pg. 1). These statistics show that video games mainly revolve around violence. Despite these statistics and despite the fact that video games consist of mainly violence, it does not mean that it necessarily leads to violence. In some cases it might lead to minor incidents such as fighting amongst friends or even fighting in general, but no matter how much violence is in video games it does not lead to killing. In an USA Today article on the Internet talks about how video games are not a cause of violence and gives statistics to support its argument as well… http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2007-03-02-killer-games_N.htm

This video contains, teenagers and their views about video games, also a teacher who talks about video games and the causes…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVI-inERzKk&feature=related

Another video, is about video game and parenting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noefiLZkE08&feature=channel

One major impact is that when people play violent video games, the person playing gets to act out the violence, rather than being an observer. This is opposed to just watching television or movies. People argue that it is more influential when the child is playing the game and experiencing these acts of violence. I agree with that statement to a certain extent, however, I still think that video games can be a good influence. When children play video games, they can learn things that are essential for life. In the sense that by playing video games, it teaches them and helps them develop problem solving skills, teamwork, leadership, and a sense of competition.

In an essay “Art Form for the Digital Age”, the author Henry Jenkins gives a few statistics about video games in America. He first talks about how video games have Americans hooked and have been making millions and millions of dollars off of them. Computer and video games are in almost every household in America and according to his statistics, Americans had bought almost over 215 million computer and video games last year. Jenkins asks the reader, “So are video games a massive drain on our income, time, and energy? A new form of “cultural pollution”, as one U.S. Senator describes them?” (233). After asking those questions Jenkins gets his point across that computer and video games should not be considered a bad thing. If you continue to read his essay Jenkins and I both have different arguments, however, we both agree that video games should not be considered a scapegoat for violence. Video games should not be the main reason why violence happens frequently. There are many other reasons as to why people have such anger and unleash their anger towards others. Computer and video games are becoming imbedded in everyday life with everyone and are important and are somewhat needed in our world.

Video games don’t necessarily lead to violence and they aren’t a waste of money and time, but are helpful and can be useful in life. Video games can serve as an educational purpose on underlying skills. Even though video games are getting somewhat more and more violent, video games should not be looked at as exceptionally violent. They should be looked at as offering new ways of understanding violence and how to have the social responsibility not to take them seriously. Even though violence in video games is big, it should not be the main reason that causes violence in our society.

 Works Cited

1. Ackley, Katherine Anne. Perspectives on Contemporary Issues Lyn Uhl, 2006.

2. Media Violence Facts and Statistics

http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/faq/mediaviolstats.asp

3. Shin, Grace. Video Games: A Cause of Violence and Aggression.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1723

4. www.nytimes.com

11/22/10 readings

In this week’s readings Marshall McLuhan, a pop prophet and media visionary, gives us his thoughts and ideas about the media. The media explosion in which he describes was a series of explosions that will last us through and beyond our lifetimes such as the radio, television, and film. The second explosion in the media generation are the coming of video games and discs and cable. Perceptual numbing McLuhan describes is a stubborn insensitivity to all but the most extreme experiences in life. Another idea by McLuhan, depth involvement, is something in the media that may be undermining our confidence in the possibilities for first hand individual experience and reliable knowledge about events in the world. The irony of McLuhan’s achievement is that his description of media’s effects applies better to the new, second generation of media than to the initial generation of radio and television he was trying to describe. He saw that these two media explosions would create two possible alternatives. One was Utopian, in which people’s view with television would create a change in people’s views and perspectives with other media modes. There is a critical distance between the reader and his book, between the moviegoer and the screen. The videogame player becomes his game in a way that the reader does not become the book. He is saying that there is a gap between this types of innovations that have captured people in way that they have ignored the old ways of media.

commercial- Go Daddy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKQEpzJTUio

The Go Daddy commercial is also a funny commercial and having Danica Patrick and another pretty girl advertising this website, they both have nothing to do with the website. Go Daddy is an Internet domain website for business companies and the like. Their commercials, such as this one, have nothing to do with what the website does, it just creates a mind set for the audience to think that if they advertise their website with two beautiful women, one being a race car driver, they would make people visit and be curious about their website.

commercial- Axe Clean Your balls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPwhMoQBg_8

-The Axe Clean Your Balls commercial is funny because it’s exaggerating what Axe can do for guys. They use a pretty girl to advertise it because its funny yet at the same time it’s what guys want, a pretty girl to play and clean their balls, no pun intended. And that’s the message of the commercial.

11/15 blog readings.

In the readings, television news sets the standard by directing our attention toward a daily series of unrelated events just to entertain the audience. It reveals its main purpose, which is to entertain, not to inform which they make it seem to be. A newspaper critic believes that, “the job of the anchorman is to distract viewers from the disturbing parade of images that constitutes the news”. The article goes on by saying how newswomen never have any wrinkles, in another words the newswomen are always young and pretty looking women. I agree with that belief in our media today. In the article it states that’s, “seven out of ten people now get their information about the world exclusively from TV. Yet one recent study revealed that these people can no longer give even one reason to justify their choice of a particular political candidate or policy”. I also believe and agree with the facts. I see it happen all the time with people arguing about politics and have no idea what they’re talking about and have no evidence to back up what they are saying. The job of TV news is to distract us from worrying thoughts while preserving the excitement provided by an illusion of danger and fear.

Week 8 Nov 8th; Net Neutrality cont'd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYQGdpZ3QhA


Net Neutrality interview with Fox. Also New York Times article link: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html

Week 8 Nov. 8; Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet. Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers may not discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies. Net Neutrality is the reason the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation and free speech online. It protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data, not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies such as: AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable; want to be “Internet gatekeepers”. They want to be able to decide whether how fast or slow they make the Internet. They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of a level playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services.

The supporters of Net Neutrality include leading online buying companies such as Amazon, EBay, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo. They need Net Neutrality to stay in business and it is vital for the people to have their freedom of speech on the Internet. They rely on the public to create their business.

This from the New York Times, “The Federal Communications Commission has come out in favor of keeping things that way, but its ability to do so has been in doubt since a federal appeals decision in April 2010 restricted its authority over broadband service.” Those cable and telephone companies have been trying to get rid of the Net Neutrality.

 I think that Net Neutrality should continue. If the Internet was regulated by the cable and telephone companies I don’t think the same amount of people would still be interested in Facebook and all those online social services.

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html