What Makes Teenagers Like Video Games and How Can They Affect Their Social Lives?

In recent years, the video gaming industry has grown a lot and it is having a very strong influence on people. The target buyers for the people who make video games are children. The video gaming industries are studying what makes children play video games. I found interesting information in a PBS page and it was an article called Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked and it was written by Henry Jerkins a MIT professor. The article talks about what influences teenagers to play video games and how it can affect their social and family life. The article also talks about the effect video games have on children and teenagers but I already talked about that on the last post I wrote.

Some things that make children and teenagers play video games are stress from school, depression, being bored, and pressure from friends and families. Teenagers also play video games to pass time and to become creative for something because video games stimulate the creativity of children and teenagers. When teenagers are starting to have problems at school such as homework, they start having stress. Some teenagers think that playing video games takes away their stress but it only takes it away while they are playing. Also, many times when children are sad or bored and they have nothing to do they play video games. If the children always play video games when they are bored they get used to play them at all times. Another reason for children to play video games is that sometimes friends have a videogame and they show it to you and to other people just for you to feel jellous. Because of this the teenagers and children feel pressure of buying the videogame so they dont feel bad. Also children play lots of video games because they like to play them with their friends. When children go to their friend's houses and play video games, they usually like the games so they buy them. Some publicity that video games producers use is that they use some children playing video games and with their faces they are "saying" buy this video game or you are stupid or something like that.

The military uses some video games of shooting to train soldiers to kill and some military psychologists say that the video games children play have the same impact on them. Some times games can make children brutal and more agressive. When the children know that the military uses video games they buy them just to feel like if they were in the military.

Some psychologists think that video games can be really good to children in many positive ways. Henry Jerkins wrote this very useful paragraph about positive things video games have:

The military uses games as part of a specific curriculum, with clearly defined goals, in a context where students actively want to learn and have a need for the information being transmitted. There are consequences for not mastering those skills. That being said, a growing body of research does suggest that games can enhance learning. In his recent book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, James Gee describes game players as active problem solvers who do not see mistakes as errors, but as opportunities for improvement. Players search for newer, better solutions to problems and challenges, he says. And they are encouraged to constantly form and test hypotheses. This research points to a fundamentally different model of how and what players learn from games.

I think that video games can be very fun but when you play them to much it can get really boring. Sometimes I play video games because I am bored but never because of some reasons that Henry Jerkins talks about in the article I read.

In my next post I will like to write about some problems that video games can generate in adult's lifes.

Impact of Video Games on Teenagers

I was searching some information of the impact of video games on teens and I found this page that has a lot of information. The page talks about some studies that universities and hospitals have done. The general result shows that when teens play bloody and violent they can behave like if they were that person in the game. Many children reveal to their parents and teachers if they say that video games are bad because they are vicious about them. But not all the video games are bad for people, the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) shows that some games help people with computer reading, solving problems, and motricity. The ESRB rates video games according to their content. The rating method is: Early childhood (3 and more years), everyone (6 and more years), teen (13 and more), mature (17 and older), and adults only (18 and older depending on where the game is sold). One of the major causes of increasing teen violence is that there are more violent games and more children allowed to play them a lot. More studies about the subject have said that boys play more videogames weekly than girls. The author of the article said:

Video games also encourage players to identify with and role play their favorite characters. This is referred to as a "first-person" video game (Anderson & Dill, 2000, p. 788) because players are able to make decisions affecting the actions of the character they are imitating. After a limited amount of time playing a violent video game, a player can "automatically prime aggressive thoughts" (Bushman & Anderson, 2002, p. 1680). The researchers concluded that players who had prior experience playing violent video games
responded with an increased level of aggression when they encountered confrontation (Bushman & Anderson, 2002).

The worst part of the violence in video games is that sometimes the children stay violent forever. It is easier that small children are influenced from this violent than teenagers or adults. The children of today can become violent by watching their older brothers and sisters play violent video games that are not proper for small children. Some times the industries that make video games make campaigns to promote their video games, and many children see that and they would like to have them.

When children and teens have video games and they play them a lot, it will be very difficult to take the video games away from them. This are some tips for parents worried about their children playing too much video games or not proper games for them:

• Know what is the game about and if it can affect your children.


• Watch your children playing the game and think if it is good for your son or daughter.


• Talk with other parents to talk about video games.

I think that parents should never take away their children's video games because it will cause the child to become very sad, and they will be very bored. I also think that there is a good part of video games that can be better than the worst parts. The games can bring motricity to children and use of technology in their lives and that is important in these days in which to get a good work it is very useful to have a good control over technology and not the tech controls you. I think that not all games are bad. Some games have other languages or mathematics or something like that that the children can learn at school and playing the game.

I would like to learn about what things can influence children and teenagers to play video games.

.::Technology::.

I've been thinking of the topic I would choose on my Teen Life Project, and my first issue to choose is technology. I found an article called "Technology Gives Teens Myriad Ways to Torment" and it talks about how technology can cause stress for teens. The major topic of this article is how technology takes away time from teens and how it makes them stress. It talks a lot about internet bulling and how sometimes teens give their personal information on internet. The major cause for internet bulling is that some persons cant solve their problems in real person so they do it on the internet.

"People are too wussie to stand up to the person in real life, so they decide to
go on the computer and send mean, nasty messages," said Colleen Harris, 16, who
said she has been the target of an online assault. "They're trying to be mean
and vicious, but they're ignorant. ... When they were calling me names, it
didn't faze me at all, but I could see how other kids could be hurt by it."

This is what Maria Elena Baca, the writer of the article said about internet bulling. The police can't do a thing about this problem because it is illegal to prevent teenagers from expressing their selves. Many studies have said that 7% of children who use the internet have been targets of internet bulling and many have received rude comments or messages. Many universities and organisations have been creating anti cyber bulling programs. Most of these programs teach teenagers how to prevent cyber bulling to occur to stop the problem. The worst part is that the majority of the bullies are teenagers because many adults don't know how to use internet. There has been cases in which bullies put comments on web pages that say that some one uses drugs, or something like that. Some of the affected people of the problem go on with their lives, but many don't. A student in Canada had to leave school because o the offends his classmates caused him on a web page that said he consumed drugs and that he was in groups of robbers. The older teenagers have been able to solve the problem and they only laugh about it, but the youngest ones have been stressed and scared. Many of this teenagers do not report their problem so it becomes greater each time they go into the red. Many of the times cyber bulling is only a joke but it can end really bad, like the boy in Canada who had to leave the school.
I really think that cyber bulling is a big problem that can affect student's life's at schools and in their houses. I think that children should make some things to stop the problem, those things are:

• Teach teens how to block bad messages.
• Don't respond to bad messages they send you.
• Never reveal personal information.
• If you are going to share your password make sure you only share it with your parents.

I think that all the teen agers should be aware of cyber bulling. Always be aware of bad messages you see on the internet and always say no if some one asks you for personal information and never chat with unknown people.

Internet bulling can cause children and teenagers have more time being on internet and less time doing homework.

I'm interesting in finding out how can video games affect teenagers life at school and at home.

Answers to Some TLP Questions

How much technology do you have in your place?

Here in Colombia the majority of people are poor, because of that technology is not important for a lot of parts in Colombia. Only in the most important cities of Colombia you can find the latest technology, but here in Cartagena you can find the new technology very little and expensive. For example, the Nintendo Wii was released in October in the United States, and here in Cartagena it was released a week before the 24th of December, and it's price was more than twice than in the United States. I would like that here you could find the latest technology in many places and much less expensive.

Is poverty a big issue in your place?

Colombia is one of the poorest countries in America. I think that more than 70 percent of the country is poor. About one million people live in Cartagena, and eight hundred thousand are poor. The government says that they are helping, but nothing has changed for the poor people, instead, they are having more kids and less food and money to live. Poverty is one of the biggest problems that Colombia is facing right now. Some causes of poverty are that when people are poor, they rob or kill to have something to live with, so the crime in our country grows along poverty. In Bogota, a major named Antanas Mocus made really good things, he reduced the assasinations in Bogota from 30 death for every 1000 people to 5 dead for every 1000 people.

What would you change about your community?

Some things I would change to my community are poverty, technology, and security. The first change I would make to my community is poverty. I would make that every poor person has a good job, so they could have food and commodities. This change would make better in many ways, such as reducing crime. The second change I would make would be adding more security. To do this Cartagena would need more police men, that would produce more jobs, with more jobs there would be less poverty, and with less poverty there could be less crime. With a better security people from all the world would visit Cartagena, that would bring a lot of money. Also people would be more secure about making stores and stuff like that. Security and less poverty would make Cartagena a much better place to live and to visit. The last change I would make to my community, Cartagena, would be to add more technology. I would add skycrapers, malls with technology stores, and many things. I would like that all the new technology arrived in Colombia at the same time they arrived in the United States. I would also like that everything was less expensive. Oh, I forgot, another change I would make to Cartagena would be to add better transportation. I would make bigger streets, and all the busses I would sell them and get new ones with air conditioner. Also, I would add a subway to get easy transportation all arround Cartagena. At least the goverment is making a project called TransCaribe, which is like trains but they are busses, and they are adding water taxis which are taxis that you take on the sea. Those are all the changes I would make to my community although I like my city a lot.