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Cody Sardella
Professor Yaniga
Writing 39C
1/25/15
Do Video Games Really Affect Your Personal Life?
Video games have a great power that can produce a large effect on people.
People say that video games cause social disorders or social anxiety within users who
play or interact with others online the most. Video games provide influences on a
human character. With the combination of outside situations, a person has potential to
either develop beneficially or negatively in social interaction, but a person can act
differently in online or real life scenarios (Bavelier). This misconception is urgent and
needs to be rectified because of negative stigmas for video games where actually they
can help benefit those who play them.
An example of this negative online behavior comes from interactions of players
on the popular video game, League of Legends. In this game, there are instances of
teammates and other players flaming other players for lack of skill, lack of game
knowledge, or intentionally being an uncooperative teammate. Flaming is the textual
way of being offensive or aggressive towards another person online (techterms). In one
of the most played PC games in the world, League of Legends, more than 47 million
players have been reported due to flaming, and even more now that this article is two
years old (Forbes; Kuo, 619). But is this an inherent cause of the video game, or has
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the video game help players grow from being a flamer? League of Legends has
developed an effective code implementation to do this feat. The Tribunal empowers
players to self-govern others behaviors by judging the chat history of a player who has
been reported (Senior). The Tribunal has implemented Lessig’s idea of code and norms
in “a serious and partially effective effort” that has produced results because fifty
percent of players warned that their behavior was inflammatory have not been found on
the tribunal again (Kuo, 620). This, although not cumulative of all people who play
games online, has the potential to indicate how video games help strengthen character
by having a positive norm to abide with and a warning code to help correct errors if
someone goes off on a bad day. This example then combats against the stigma that
video games cause social disorders or malignant behavior because there are players
actively trying to help improve negative attitude.
Previously before the existence of League of Legends and large wide scale
masses of people partaking in video games, studies were conducted in order to see the
effects of online interaction on a person’s behavior. A study was conducted by Bryant
College to determine the relationship between the loneliness a person feels and the
amount of time spent on the internet. The results concluded are that people who claim
to be lonely spend more time on the internet for various reasons shown in the graph
below.
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Source: Morahan-Martin, Janet, and Phyllis Schumacher. "Loneliness and Social
Uses of the Internet."
The above graph does show a corrolation between lonliness and internet use,
but it doesn’t indicate that internet use promotes or causes social anxiety. To further the
argument against the idea that video games promote social anxiety and ngeative
behavior, the following graphs indicate the relationship between player’s online friends
and real life relationships. The graphs relate closely in time period to the first table, and
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they contain differences in data about how game playing affects a person’s relationships.
Where the first one indicates a dependancy on the internet and increased inter use for
the more lonely, but the second and third graph indicate that a majority of people’s
personal relationships do not suffer because of their gameplay and internet use.
Therefore a conclusion could be made about how video games did not produce
negative affects to how a person relates with other people in the early 2000’s.
Source: Yee, Nick. “ The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study of EverQuest.”
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But does this mean playing video
games or interacting online produce no
negative consequenses? No, the
statistics in the above graphs indicate an
actual problem, Promblematic Internet
Use (PIU). The University of Delaware
has conducted research into the
symptoms of PIU with use of video games.
“Individuals who report negative
outcomes associated with theur internet
use appear to be especially drawn to its
iterpersonal functions” (Caplain 1.1). The
people who were tested produced symptoms close to what is described as Impulse
Control Disorder, meaning that they are unable to resist the urge to use the internet.
Where this might be characterized by addiction, PIU “creates psychological, social,
school, and/or work difficulties in a person’s life” (Caplain 2.1). In the below graph, the
data tells that 79% of people tested did not prefer to use the internet rather than
spending time with others. This essentially means that overuse of the internet does
create a dependency and addictive habits, but it doesn’t show increases in social
anxiety or disconnection from people.
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Source: Beard, Keith W., and Eve M. Wolf. "Modification in the Proposed Diagnostic
Criteria for Internet Addiction."
Since video games can contribute to a dependency or addiction to the internet,
does that mean the time spent gaming online will hurt the player in their ability to be
social with people? No, gaming online can help teach a player to “create and maintain
relationships to manage gaming and abide by and construct norms and rules that help
make up the interactional space” (Eklund, 2.1). This means that in this space players
may develop friendships while entertaining themselves and participating in immersive
world to perform tasks furthering a bond and connection to other people. This could
then help develop relationship skills because “you can do something together. It’s not
just talking” (Eklund 4.1).
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The common myth that video games cause social anxiety and produce an antisocial behavior has been seen through the past few years. This information has shed
light onto the ideology that video games do cause social problems within the players,
but the studies presented have proved the contrary. Video games inherently do not
produce a change within people, but this misconception does have an underlying truth.
The continual and growing use of the internet and online gaming has been seen to
cause Problematic Internet Use. This creates a dependency within the person for
continual online-time. This was and still is a problem within adolescent users of the
internet, but while using the internet and playing games with others a person can gain
knowledge on how to interact with others and, that interacting and friendship goes
beyond what you can discuss. It’s what you can do together that helps you be able to
grow.
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Works Cited
Bavelier, Daphne, C. Shawn Green, Doug Hyun Han, Perry F. Renshaw, Michael M. Merzenich,
and Douglas A. Gentile. "Brains on Video Games." Nature Reviews Neuroscience Nat
Rev Neurosci 12.12 (2011): 763-68. Web.
Beard, Keith W., and Eve M. Wolf. "Modification in the Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for
Internet Addiction." CyberPsychology & Behavior 4.3 (2001): 377-83. Web.
Caplan, Scott, Dmitri Williams, and Nick Yee. "Problematic Internet Use and Psychosocial
Well-being among MMO Players." Computers in Human Behavior 25.6 (2009): 1312319. Web.
Eklund, Lina. "Bridging the Online/offline Divide: The Example of Digital Gaming." Computers
in Human Behavior 53 (2015): 527-35. Web.
"Flaming." Definition. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://techterms.com/definition/flaming>.
Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/07/11/riot-games-league-of-legendsofficially-becomes-most-played-pc-game-in-the-world/#7ece22f56ae2>.
Kuo, Yubo, and Bonnie Nardi. IDEALS @ Illinois:. Proc. of Regulating Anti-social Behavior on
the Internet: The Example of League of Legends. N.p., 30 Jan. 2013. Web.
Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic, 1999. Print.
Liu, T., and M.n. Potenza. "Problematic Internet Use." Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience
(2010): 104-11. Http://www.education.vic.gov.au/. Web.
Morahan-Martin, Janet, and Phyllis Schumacher. "Loneliness and Social Uses of the Internet."
Computers in Human Behavior 19.6 (2003): 659-71. Web.
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Senior, Tom. "Riot Games Hopes Tribunal System Will Clean up League of Legends
Community." PC Gamer. N.p., 13 Jan. 2011. Web. <http://www.pcgamer.com/riotgames-hopes-tribunal-system-will-clean-up-league-of-legends-community/>.
Yee, Nick. "The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study of EverQuest." The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study of
EverQuest - (MMORPG Research, Cyberculture, MMORPG Psychology, Demographics,
Statistics, Psychology, Charts, Addiction, Gender Differences, Gender Bending,
Relationships, Romance, Guilds, Download). N.p., May 2001. Web.
<http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/relate.html>.