passage: "video games have been widely criticzed for having a negative effect on the nation's youth. if one looks at the facts, however, over the last 25 years, the period in which the use of video games became common among the youth , math scores on the most commonly used aptitude test have risen consistently, and entry-level salaries for college graduates have also risen significantly. this evidence suggests that video games are actually providing young people with the skills they need to succeed in college and in the workplace."
my response:
“Stupid is as stupid does.” That’s one of the most famous lines from the movie Forrest Gump. For those that have not seen the movie, Forrest Gump was born with a low IQ. His Mom told him that even though he was stupid he could achieve anything in life. Well, in my opinion if video games were around when Forrest Gump was alive, and he played them all the time, I don’t believe it would make him smart. He probably would have had difficulty even learning how to play them. Video games are neither good nor bad for children in regards to levels of intelligence. In this essay I will discuss how video games do not change brain chemistry, therefore do not make children smarter or dumber, video games contain a small percentage of what kids cover in math class, and over the years due to evolution humans as a race have become smarter and smarter, but not because of video games.
Yes video games are fun for kids and they are entertaining. However, they can not reach inside someone’s brain and change their predispositioned gene pool that was given to them. Most children’s brains are growing and forming the most from birth to age 6. Video game playing does not usually start until after that stage. The brain is already developed a great deal and it is easy to see a child’s level of intelligence at a young age. Video games are just that – games. Kids have been playing games since the beginning of time this is just another game. It’s no different than the development of Monopoly or Chess. It just contains a digital screen and a controller. There is hand eye coordination in every game. Think about a young golfer trying to swing his arms in a correct manner just as a gamer tries to move his thumb and his index finger at just the right time and the right pressure. Are video games good for kids? I think so because they are entertaining and the kids are having fun. Are they bad for kids? That’s a very personal answer due to the nature of some of the games contents.
A video game making a person smarter in math is not necessarily believable considering most of the math in video games is addition, subtraction, and the simplest form of counting is used. Distances and angles are used, percentages, division, multiplication, and a couple other arithmetic concepts. But I can not think of a video games that uses Algebra or Calculus. It works your memory and requires you to remember tricks and trades you learn along the way. But everything we do in life requires us to use our memory. Playing a video game is not working our brains any harder than playing Scrabble or even Twister. Even in Twister you have to use your brain to think about how you are going to move your body. So next are we going to say that because of the game Twister getting invented, all our children are so much smarter?
As a human race and species the human brain has developed in ways that we never thought possible. Evolution has allowed humans to create electricity and telephones, and now video games. The reason test scores are higher is because kids get smarter and smarter every year. Every generation is more advanced than the next. Levels of discovery and barriers to the unknown are crossed every day in every subject of life. Look at the evolution of space travel. Who knows where we will be in 20 decades. Who knows how smart we will be as humans. But one thing is certain, video games do not make a child or grown person smarter. They are a way for humans to go through life having fun.
Video games neither make someone smarter or dumber because the number of hours playing video games is not proportional to IQ. If a man A with an IQ in the top 90th percentile were to play video games the same amount of hours as a man B with an IQ in the 50th percentile, Man A will still always be smarter than Man B. While video games are educational because they have basic math in them, most games over the history of games have some math in them. Also, people are evolving and growing smarter every day. While I’m sure there are some smart gamers out there, especially the professional ones, there level of skill in gaming is due to their level of intelligence and commitment to gaming, not the other way around. Their choice to choose gaming as a career did not make them smart. The issue of salaries raising is simply inflation of the economy. Milk was not the same price 50 years ago and your grandfather counterpart will always fall behind in the salary department. Video games are just that, games. Nothing more, nothing less.