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.