This article identifies the pros and cons of video games and acknowledges their benefits at some extent. The author of this artcile, Steven Johnson, also compares video games to books and discusses the effect that these two have on society. He begins his article by providing outside information regarding video games in order for the reader to have a more broad idea on the general definition of playing video games.
George Will said, that the current graphic entertainment ("video games, computer games, hand-held games, movies on their computers, and so on") as infantile. Therefore the article argues that "adults are becoming less "distinguishable from children" for being so consumed to this childish entertainment. Compared to previous generations these actions are considered "stupid" for being unhealthy. However, as technology develops and new devices become available it is inevitable for society to not be intrigued and therefore interested, even if it is stupid.
Another source of information was, Dr. Spock's work. He shared what he had to say about video games and their impact on the users in his work "Revised and fully expanded for a new century". He identifies video games as something that negatively affecting society's mind. Dr. Spock states that " the best that can be said of them is that they may help promote eye-hand coordination in children", and the worst that can be said is the negative impact on a child's behaviour. According to him, children who constantly interact with video games tend to respond more violently than those who do not. Referring to the current definition of video games, according to Wikipedia video games have more positive outcomes than negative. It is true that children's reactions may be affected for playing video games, and it is because of all the constant violence in the video game. When purchasing a video game there is a warning rate provided by the ESRB for people who can play that specific video game. If parents are not aware of this or decided to ignore it then it is not entirely reasonable to blame video games for such negative impact.
Furthermore, this article focuses on the two different social groups that have been formed in America throughout the years of technology development. These two groups are, those who read for pleasure and those who do not. Those who read (less than half of the population) are active and consider life as an "accrual of fresh experience and knowledge" while does who don't " have settled into apathy". In other words, reading books is considered as something better to do than zoning out in front of a video game. However, most American still choose to play video games instead of reading a book like it was used to in previous generations. This could imply that video games are found as much more interesting than reading books, and this theory is also mentioned in the article through an example. If the world had experienced video games for the same time it experienced books then our general perspective on them would be completely different. If books suddenly came into our lives such as video games did at some point, these would be inevitably compared to video games, which have been present for hundreds of years, and we would consider books as something rather negative. This is because as human beings we justify our actions by only looking at the positive side of them. If video games were used for such long period of time is because we found something positive on them that shapes us into who we currently are. However, if books are suddenly introduced to our lives these could be consider as an intrusion of our video game peace.
The author of this article finds immense virtues on reading books and encourages children to read more books, "to develop a comfort with and an appetite for reading". And therefore become intellectual human beings. According to the author the rewards of reading are, "the information conveyed by the book, and the mental work one has to do to process and store that information". In other words we gain information and exercise our minds while retaining and understanding that information. This skills would help us throughout our lives with different situations because of the concentration, effort and attention we develop while reading. However, the author also acknowledge some of the benefits video games provide to the users. He states that "playing today's video games does in fact improve your visual intelligence and your manual dexterity, but the virtues of gaming run far deeper than hand -eye coordination" as Dr. Spock argued. In other words playing video games might be not a complete waste of time. However this article focuses more on the bigger advantages that reading has compared to playing video games. It is simply about making the "right choice".
My personal interaction with video games have led me to think that Video games are not actually as bad as many people may consider. I actually think that video games have great advantages, not only the stimulation of hand-eye coordination. This may be because most of my life I have been playing video games and I am aware of the impact that these have on my life. Based on what people say around me and my school records, I have never reacted violently or
often zoned out during class. In other words, Insufficient information is provided in most articles that state that video games are "bad" for someone. How many hours a day does a child must play video games in order to respond violently? Or How long does a child need to play in order to improve his eye-hand coordination? Perhaps video games have different effect on different people. And this theory is something that is not mentioned in any of the video games articles I have read.
I find this particular article to be bias against video games. This may be because the author makes a life out of wiritng books and is very familiar with the great advantages of reading books. This leads me to think that one must experience something in order to fully discuss about it. I personally do not think that the author of this article has spend more than 30 hours a week playing video games. He just bases his information on studies and investigations regarding video games. Therefore, I do not think that his arguments on video games are entirely valid. This is because the impact of video games on his own life is unknown and therefore his opinion on them might be unreliable.
If considering books and video games as complete opposites and dividing society into those who read for pleasure and those who do not, then it is not possible for us to know and understand both of this sides completely. However, it is possible to have some sense of balance between these two. For example, myself. I love to read books, specially fiction books. This may be because I am very attracted to the unrealistic possibilities due to playing video games since early age. However, a book is still a book. The article does not specify what types of books should be read in order to develop our intellect, therefore I do not consider books and video games to be entirely different from one another. Yes, books may indeed improve our sense of understanding and exercise our minds but the different stories it provides are not real, just like the ones in a video game. For example, Harry potter. The famous book series by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter also comes as a video game. I have played the video games and read the seven books, and I could say that these two had a very similar impact on myself. I found the books and the video games awfully interesting and time consuming. I isolated myself from others in order to finish my book and to beat my game. I also had to solve countless puzzles to beat the game and improved my reading skills for reading the book. However, the story was pretty much the same and I still distanced myself from reality and from other people.
Moreover, many teenagers today, specially girls, dream of being Bella from Twilight and wait for their vampire Edward to save them from their sad reality. They spend hours and hours day dreaming of a fantasy that will never come. And this was caused by a book. If I spend time thinking of how to improve my character of a video game or how to increase my level is no different from day dreaming of being a character in a book story. Therefore I think that the main problem of video games and books lies more on the unrealistic side of things. It is our need to escape reality the one that keeps on choosing to play video games or reading great books. Even if we learn more from one method than the other the result is the same. In other words, I do not think is important how intellectual we may become when our intellect has less and less room to share in this non interested world of virtually. If most Americans have chosen to play video games it may be because their interest on learning out of the main source of knowledge, a book, continues to diminish. As depressing as it may be it is time to adapt to these tragic reality of ignorance and self deception.
The book feed is a representation of the current teenage world involved with electronic devices. The author portayes this world as something tragic but inevitable. Which is similar to this article
that also communicates the nageative aspects of this consumption. The main factor of these two, the article and the book is people finding what is "fun". And both of these authors claim that dedicating most of our lives to technology devices is not actually fun, but a repetitive bad habit of ours that is considered entretaining. Also both authors agree that reading books is actually better. In the book feed, Anderson portrays Violet as the revolution against this tragic world of technology, and she happent to be very fonded of books. In other words it is those who have knowledge and are more self aware of reality who are able to see beyond that virtual world and consider life differently. Which is similar to what the author of this article is saying.
In conclusion books and video games are in fact two different aspects that are present our current society. Although one of them may represnt knowledge and the other one a waste of time, I think that both of these ultimately offer some attributes to people as well as deficits. These however are simply part of the setting of our lives. It is our choice to do what we want with them. We could blame or give credit to any of these but it would be something that was gained by us after the great amount of time we chose to dedicate to them.
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