Some studies found that self-control or parents’ support are key mediators/moderators to prevent game addiction or gaming disorder (Şahin et al., 2019; Soh et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2015). However, this study argues that democratic citizenship requires tolerance and understanding of others’ viewpoints (Bohman, 2003). Mutz (2006) suggested heterogeneous discussion as a potential solution for such segregation or polarisation. Furthermore, as a positive impact of heterogeneous discussion, Mutz (2006) found that individuals with heterogeneous discussions were aware of both the rationales for oppositional opinions and those for their own viewpoints, while demonstrating tolerance.
Gamers’ communicative networks
Researchers like Ian Bogost, with his work on persuasive games, have shown how games can help us understand complex social problems from a personal perspective and make us more empathetic. For example, his game Fat World places the same geographic and economic constraints on the player as experienced by those who live in poor urban areas. Without access to reliable transportation, players are limited to food in their immediate surroundings, which comprise neighborhood shops with fewer healthy options and a significantly higher-per-capita presence of fast-food restaurants. With price disparities between healthy and unhealthy food and a limited food stamp budget, players must choose whether to buy high quantities of inexpensive, unhealthy food to last their family for a week or more expensive healthy food that may last only a few days. Thus, the game play shows how obesity and diabetes do not necessarily result from conscious choices or lack of willpower, but from complex socio-demographic factors beyond the control of individuals. The next step is to figure out how these findings may translate to the classroom, where video games are already making in-roads.
Can Violent Videogames Make Us More Moral?
While intrinsically designed game-based learning has been well recognised to be beneficial to student learning, there is no empirical documentation for the extrinsic role of game playing in the promotion of learning, particularly in the field of socio-political issues. Regarding policy campaigns to prevent excessive game playing, this study offers in-depth insights into characteristics of a specific game genre. For instance, compared to the other gaming genres, RPG and MOBA gamers are multifaceted gamers who tend to consider various aspects both inside and outside of game play. Policymakers should consider the unique characteristics of the game genre and game players. In addition, as this study suggests, policymakers or those who design campaigns should understand that players of each genre have unique characteristics and gamers’ interpersonal communication networks play positive roles. Thus, policymakers should deeply understand the nature of games and gamers’ communicative networks to effectively prevent negative gaming disorder.
This case might represent the best-informed public debate to date on the issue of violent videogames and aggression. Amicus briefs filed on both sides of the case pulled all the relevant research known at the time and subjected it to intense scrutiny and debate. Ultimately, the argument by the ESA won out, first in District Court, later on appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally in the U.S.
Legislators should consult university researchers in both communications and educational psychology to get a wider perspective on how play and learning merge to generate behavior in the real world. Context does not just reduce the likelihood of becoming more aggressive as a result of violent media; it can actually result in positive behavioral outcomes. The jury’s still out on whether playing video games can make us smarter, but researchers have found that parts of the brain (related to memory, muscle control, strategic planning, and spatial navigation) can get bigger as a result of playing.
According to Squire (2010), gamers’ communities function as spaces for communication, which creates a learning culture for gamers. As discussed above, the collective or participatory aspects of game playing or gaming culture plays a crucial role in learning, more specifically, this study argues that communication/discussion among members has an important role in the process of learning by playing games. There has been a significant body of research to suggest that playing games explicitly designed for educational purposes provides an alternative means of teaching (Ninaus et al., 2019). For example, a recent work by Chen et al. (2019) insisted that game-based negotiation learning can promote students’ goal setting. Game-based learning is characterised by balancing gaming play with subject matter or knowledge and the ability of student players to maintain the motivation of participants.
Usable Knowledge
In the study, frequent game players between the ages of 18 and 23 were better at monitoring what was happening around them than those who didn’t play as often or didn’t play at all. And they were faster at picking out objects from a cluttered environment. After playing a game called Age of Mythology, Gee says, kids (like his 8-year-old son) often start checking out mythology books from the library or join Internet chat groups about mythological characters. “This is called attentional control, the ability to flexibly switch attention as time demands,” she says. Some of the first evidence that gaming may train the brain came from first-person shooter games. That these oft-maligned games might actually have benefits was first stumbled upon by an undergraduate studying psychology at the University of Rochester in New York.
People want to play video games already, the learning that comes with the package is just a bonus along the way, and often an unrecognized one at that. Still, contrary to the popular narrative, video games can actually offer several key benefits for players young and old. They’re proven to enhance dexterity, memory, focus, and hand-eye coordination, to name just a few. Truly, though, there’s one thing that always seems to be left out of the conversation when talking about the positive side of gaming as a hobby and that’s its ability to teach.
If we are honest with ourselves, we have known for some time that the answer to whether violence in any medium is “good” or “bad” is “it depends.” It depends on a variety of social, developmental, emotional, and contextual factors. It depends on the set of circumstances that each person, as an active participant in the meaning-making process, brings to the table. In defining these conditions and factors, we will final fantasy quiz have to leave our preconceived notions and prejudices behind and accept that positive and negative effects may result from “good” or “bad” media. If we fail to remain open to all such possibilities, even those that go against our personal beliefs, we put at risk the very outcome we are trying to achieve — a more just, fair, and moral world for future generations.
As the theoretical basis, this study applies the notion of gamification on perceived game learning as discussed in pedagogical studies on game playing (Nietfeld, 2020; Park et al., 2019). Importantly, there is a potential to promote learning by playing games that are not designed for a pedagogical purpose. Stufft (2018) argued that the use of games that are not intrinsically designed to convey a specific concept may promote students’ engagement in an interest-driven pursuit of learning knowledge. It is noteworthy to state that past literature suggests a possible positive linkage of playing games and learning in political science through the formation of network ties (Pathak et al., 2008; Freeman, 2017). The main tenet behind the educational strategy is that playing games may act as a social simulator that helps people connect with each other (building social capital), share ideas, and teach each other (collective intelligence). Moreover, literature on political communication asserts that communication or discussion significantly contributes to increasing political knowledge (Jung et al., 2011; Loy et al., 2019).
It’s a call for legislators to give greater consideration to the role of transfer before passing sweeping bans on violent video game play. It’s a call for all of us to use games as a vehicle to talk about racial, social, gender, and other inequities that are very much a part of the world we live in. And Monopoly is a game with no safety net, and there’s very few mechanism in the game that allow a person to get back into the game when they’re losing.
Because kids are interested in the game, they often end up reading at a level well above their grade, even if they say they don’t like to read. Workforce training, education and rehab regimens might all benefit from a game-playing model. In All You Can E.T., players shoot food or drink into aliens’ mouths based on a set of rules that keeps changing, forcing their brains to shift between tasks.