Video Games A Curse Or A Blessing Psychology Essay

Video Games A Curse Or A Blessing Psychology Essay Nowadays, video games are more advanced than they ever were. Fascinating story lines, and more complex levels than before, these video games become more and more sought after by todays youth. It has become easier to purchase and access games with mature ratings (M) by underage children and teenagers. Parents would argue that video games corrupt the minds of the teens, and it could lead them to develop a violent personality that can make them become aggressive and commit crimes. And since we are all aware about the parenthood protective instinct, their concerns are understandable. Incidents like the school shooting like the one that happened in Colorado thirteen years ago, child aggression, and the decrease in school work are said to be the effect of video gaming. Of course, it is not for all the video games that exist but games like Doom, Madworld, and Gears of War are some of the games that are blamed. Parents state that more than a thousand of scientific reviews and studies conclude that the exposure to media violence and violent video gaming increases the aggressive behavior of youths. In a paper that was written by Rachel Ray called Violent Video Games, she strongly supports the idea that aggressive video games hold some strong effect on the young boy practicing that act. She begins her article by referring to the shootings in Kentucky, Paducah, Colorado, and Columbine. She states that in those cases, the teenagers who were responsible for those shootings were addicted to Doom. Furthermore, she said that there is correlation between youth and teens behaviors and violent video games are undeniable. Ray also stated: I personally believe that aggressive video games have an effect on young adults, and in turn can cause them to commit crimes. (Ray, 2006) Another research suggested that when performing violent acts in video games may contribute in teenagers aggression than just watching violent scenes on movies and TV shows. According to this view, the more teens act violently while playing game, the more likely they will perform violent acts in their real life (Cesarone, 1994).   In the majority of video games, females are the ones who are depicted to be victims. Video Games such as, Grand Theft Auto promote and talks about theft, prostitution, and violent behavior.   This game encourages males to behave in a wrong way if they want to move along the levels of the game. Furthermore, research has found that males tend to play video games more than women which may produce factor of such aggressiveness in video games.   It is known that acting out such violence as opposed to just viewing it will cause the young boy to become more familiar acting violently without any consequence. Moreover, to explore the question about how playing video games my change the brain, Dr. Vincent Matthews and some of his colleagues at Indiana University who have studied media violence looked at what happen in the brain of twenty eight students who were randomly chosen to play either a non-violent or a first-person shooter games (violent video game) every day at an intervals of a week. At the beginning of this study, researchers used Functional magnetic resonance imaging scan for the brain in order to understand its activity when the study participants who are all young adult men, while playing the lab based task either involving non-emotional or emotional contents. The participants were scanned over and over again while repeating the same tasks, after one week of playing the two opposite types of video games (Park, 2011). Researchers found out that the participants who practiced the violent video games showed less activity in the areas about emotions, inhibition, and attention in the brain. Mathews stated: Behavioral studies shown an increase in aggressive behavior after violent games, and what we show is the physiological explanation for what the behavioral studies are showing (Park, 2011). We are showing that there are changes in the brain function that are likely related to that behavior. One task that the participants completed while being under the scan appraised their response to non-violent vs. violent words. The participants were presented with non-violent words such as walk, run, and talk and violent words such as harm, hit, shoot, and kill (Park, 2011). Therefore, Dr. Mathews came with a conclusion that the changes that happens to the brain while playing violent video games dont appear to be permanent; however, documenting that the brain changes when playing the violent games even if it is for just few hours a day for a whole week., and this can be a significant proof on how young players can be affected when playing these kinds of games.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Personally speaking I love playing violent video games, because when I do so I forget about all my daily problems and I release all the frustration I assembled during the day by shooting zombies or damaging cars and buildings. The major problem that we had when we wanted to play those games was the approval of our parents because no one of any age wants someone to breathe down you neck or looking over your shoulder in order to observe what you are doing. For centuries, parents have that protective instinct for their children and want to protect from anything aggressive or violent. For instance, even in sports, it exist violence to some degree. For example, the American football the coach tells his players almost every day to rip the opponent player heads off. The fact remains that violence is all around us and violent computer games simply provide teens and young boys with a new high level to entertain themselves. Almost every year, the bestselling video games in US are the one which are most violent. When I was 13 years old I enjoyed playing violent Video Games with my older brother, and thankfully our parents allowed us to play any game we chose. Our parents decision to let us play whatever we want was not random because when I asked my mother why she allowed us to play those kind of games she told me that she knew that her and my father raised us well to make our own right decisions and she was sure that we will never practice what we experienced in those video game in real life. In 2011, the best seller game was Call of Duty, and for those who are familiar with video games that game is one of the most violent. I understand that parents cant stop worrying about the influence of those games on their children. Though, it is possible that young players will be more prone to imitate violence they see, it is important to keep in mind that the most aggressive video games are rated mature for a specific reason. Reasonable and well raised children wont start walking around and shooting people, robbing old women, or stealing cars. Violence is just a single small part of video games entertainment value. Olsen said in a New York Times article: teens can try out different identities, how it feels to be a hero, a trickster, a feared or scorned killer or someone of a different age or sexà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦in a safe fantasy world of video games (Olsen, 2011). For teenagers, violent video games offer mature oriented adventures that go together with their age range better than th ose offered by non violent games for children. Violent games like Call of Duty allows for more interaction and control over the environment you are playing in and it is less structured than the ones we found in movies and TV shows. Through the use of violence, video games can significantly reduce stress by distracting young gamers from pressures of their daily lives. For example, college students who are stuck between school responsibilities, part times jobs, and household chores might find a button machine for violent games a solution to enjoyably release stress and frustrations. According to a study done by Texas AM professor Christopher Ferguson, violent and aggressive video games can be used as a therapeutic solution to combat anger and depression(Ferguson, 2007). Moreover, according a research that was published in Psychology of Violences in August 2011, the degree to which competitiveness young gamers reach while practicing their hobby is more likely than the degree of violence to cause aggression in those gamers personality((Paul J. C. , Adachi, 2011). Watching, practicing, and playing games that depict bloodshed are very therapeutic in a sense that violence on our screen helps us understand death. As the author of the book Killing Monsters Gerard Jones said: Why children need fantasy, super heroes, and make-believe violenceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦through immersion in imaginary combat and identification with a violent protagonist, children engage the rage they stifledà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and become more capable of using it against lifes challenges.(Jones, 2008) Even though it seems like I am in a strong opposition on how my opponents view on seeing the video games as a curse for children and teenagers, I understand their concern and I believe that the best solution is for parents to monitor their children. That means that they should study their personality, see how they perceive those video games, and then decide based on their kids personality if they are capable of handling violent video games without switching their behavior from for what their children are allowed to do in their spare time. In the end, they are responsible to know what video games their children play and have the authority to regulate what video games their children play or how much time they are allowed to play video games. Aside from the video game rating system, there is information available about every video game in the internet, parents can Google the games name and read all the information about it. Parents need to observe and control violent video games for the ir children only if they think that it will affect their behavior and personality; However, if the parents raised their children well, they will not have anything to worry about because they will trust that they will not behave by the same the characters in those violent video games act. Therefore, when monitored by parents, violent video games will not make teens and children violent and aggressive, it will help them overcome stress and anxiety by providing them with entertainment inside their houses, and it will allow them to take out their daily frustration on fantasy characters instead of taking it out on real people.

Anti-Bullying Laws

Anti-bullying laws â€Å"When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sand paper. They may scratch you and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless†. A quote by Chris Colfer. The number of kids that get bullied everyday are increasing in the state of Arizona. In order to stop the bullying in the schools of mesa, Arizona must create a stronger anti-bullying law. To begin with, over the years the percentages of kids getting bullied are getting tremendously big.According to Winnie Hu kids think that there parents will laugh and teachers wont care that’s the reason they won’t speak up (Hu 13). everyday half a dozen of complaints said Dr. Bergacs from New York Times Magazine (Bergacs 8). Secondly kids are too scared to speak up and tell someone. Kids say it’s hard to tell someone if they are getting bullied. DeSean Jackson says at a young age it’s hard to do anything about it. They say they put their own lives in danger (Jackson 12).Finally, some kids that get bullied at school can affect their concentration at school. Parents will know something is wrong because there kids are doing bad at school . they say the bullying will just get worst. In conclusion, the anti-bullying law must work to stop bullying in the schools because bullying hurts kids and the number of kid being bullying is increasing each year. Bullying must be taken away from schools because bullies or bullied get hurt. This way kid ca stop getting hurt.

The History of Home Schooling

Before the beginning of American public schools in the mid-19th century, home schooling was the norm. Founding father John Adams encouraged his spouse to educate their children while he was on diplomatic missions (Clark, 1994). By the 1840's instruction books for the home were becoming popular in the United States and Britain. The difficulty of traveling to the system of community schools was provoking detractors. At this time, most of the country began moving toward public schools (Clark, 1994). One of the first things early pioneers did was set aside a plot of land to build a school house and try to recruit the most educated resident to be the schoolmarm. This led to recruiting of graduates Eastern Seaboard colleges to further the education oftheir children beyond what they could do at home (Clark, 1994). As the popularity of the public school movement began to rise behind Horace Mann many states soon passed compulsory-education laws. These were designed primarily to prevent farmers, miners, and other parents form keeping their kids home to work (Clark, 1994). Ironically another factor behind public schools was the desire to use them to spread Christian morality, with its concern for the larger good over individualism (Clark, 1994). Massachusetts enacted the first such laws in 1852 requiring children ages 8-14 to be at school at least 12 weeks a year unless they were too poor. The laws proved to be effective, from 1870-1898 the number of children enrolling in the public schools outpaced the population growth. Except for certain religious sects and correspondence schools home schooling remained limited for most of the 20th century. During the 1960's the hippie counterculture exploded into the scene. This culture led a revolt against the education establishment. Thousands of young Americans began dropping out of society and going back to the land to live on communes that generated the modern home schooling movement. Twenty years ago, many states did not allow home schooling. Constitutional protection has always been uncertain. The U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on home schooling. Although in 1972, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Court did restrict compulsory school requirements in a limited ruling involving the right of Amish students not to attend high school (Lines, 1996). In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Amish parents claimed that high school attendance was destructive to their children's religious beliefs and would interfere with their pursuit of the Amish way of life (Fisher, Schimmel, and Kelley, 1995). Since this ruling there have been many court cases dealing with the issue of home schooling. All 50 states allow home schooling ad 34 states have enacted specific home schooling statutes or regulations (Clark, 1994). What drives many home-schoolers are the well-documented social troubles and the declining test scores in the public schools. In 1991, the total number of children being home schooled was between 248,500 and 353,500. Many public educators feel that children who are home schooled are missing out on key learning situations that come from the public school. For instance the sciene experiments, these would be very costly to duplicate at home. Also they argue that home school children miss out on the social aspect of school. Very often they are not around many children their age and socialization does not take place. As the home schooling movement has become more widespread, state and local officials have responded with more vigorous enforcement of their compulsory education laws. As a result of this there is more litigation and new regulations. As both parents and school official's evidence increasing inflexibility, the statues play a central role in the battle over the education of the child. A secondary role is played by the courts which, in resolving the disputes between parents and the schools, must interpret and test the statutes (Chiusano 1996). Parents who are being prosecuted for instructing their children at home are attacking compulsory school attendance statues on constitutional grounds. Although no case dealing specifically with home instruction has yet reached the Supreme Court, the increased activism of the home school movement may produce a ruling in the near future (Lines, 1996). Constitutional challenges have been based on the First or Fourteenth Amendment. In many of the home instruction cases' parents have removed their children from school for religious reasons. These parents argue that they have a highly protected First Amendment freedom to educate their children according to their religious percepts and values. The most recent court decisions provide consistent continued confirmation of the Yoder decision. In Howell v. State (1986), Texas' intermediate appellate court rejected Yoder protection for parents who argued that their religious conviction was to educate their children at home (Richardson, Zirkel, 1991). In State v. Schmidt (1987), the Ohio Supreme Court held that the state's explicit-exceptions statute, which requires that home education programs be approved by the local superintendent, did not violate the free exercise clause. Another religious issue has surfaced when parents have challenged the constitutionality of requirements concerning the qualifications of the home teacher (Richardson, 1991). A few states including Michigan require all teachers in home school to possess a teaching certificate. This requirement in Michigan was challenged in 1980, 1986, and 1991. In Hanson v. Cushman (1980), the federal district court found the statute to be reasonable because the parents had not proven that any of their fundamental rights had been violated. In the private school case of Sheridan Road Baptist v. Department of Education (1986), other Michigan parents challenged the certification requirement as a burden on the free exercise of religion. This was rejected by the Michigan Supreme Court, regarding certification as a minimal burden that was outweighed by the State's interest in providing proper education. In People v. DeJonge parents claimed the right to educate their children at home, as an exercise in religious freedom. The court upheld the state law ruling that the state's interest in educated citizens outweigh the rights claimed by the parents (Fischer, 1995). In a related Michigan case, People v. Bennett (1983), the State Supreme Court ruling involving home-school families that had been convicted of violating the compulsory education statute, was reversed from he lower courts decision. The State Supreme Court permitted religious home schooling on First Amendment grounds and curbed the power of education officials to review home schooling policies (Clark, 1994). The other constitutional attack on compulsory attendance laws is non religious, primarily on Fourteenth Amendment due process grounds that parents have the right that is, the liberty, to educate their children as they see fit (Richardson, 1991). This right argued parents is superior to the state's right to compel attendance and regulate education. In Scoma v. Chicago Board of Education (1974), Blackwelder v. Safnauer (1988), and Murphy v. State (1988), the courts specifically rejected the contention that the parents had an independent, non religious, fundamental right in educating their children. In Scoma, the parents sought an injunction and declatory judgment to prevent the Chicago Board from interfering with their decision to educate their children at home. Under the Pierce and Yoder test the Illinois federal district court said the statute is reasonable and constitutional (Richardson, 1991). Now that home schooling s allowed in all 50 states, thenext step for these parents is to incorporate their children's' home schooling with public school activities. One such instance is in Iowa that started the Home Instruction Program giving parents several choices relating to their child. For instance, the curriculum they will follow, the type of assistance they would like from teachers, and whether their child will attend the neighborhood school part time (dual enrollment). This program allows parent to work with public school officials. The public school teacher meets with the home school family every two weeks (Dahm, 1996). The most recent issue being dealt with by local school boards and state governments are the extent to which home schooled students can participate in school sports and other activities. The issues in how far public schools can open their doors to home schoolers include science labs, music classes, and extracurricular activities, but athletics get the most attention according to the Home School Legal Defense Fund (Brockett, 1995). That is because competitive sports are the one activity families can not easily duplicate as their children reach high school age. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, after three state judges ruled against home schoolers being barred from playing on public high school teams, has initiated a one year open door trial program (Brockett, 1995). A Pennsylvania federal court ruled the constitutional rights ofa 14 year old taught at home were not violated, when the Frazier school district refused to let him play sports because the district could not verify his grades and attendance. In a related situation the Governor of Florida vetoed legislation that would have opened extracurricular activities to home schoolers. He explained that no state law bans them from participating. This left standing a policy of the Florida High School Athletic Activities Association banning non students on the theory that they can not represent what they do not attend (Brockett, 1995). This negative attitude of High School Athletic Associations has led parents of home schooled athletes to take their argument to court. For example, in Massachusetts, Melissa Davis was allowed to play on Norton High School softball team even though she is home schooled (Blum, 1996). The state court judge ordered Norton to allow her to play believes she may have a chance to earn an athletic scholarship to college. To be eligible to play athletics a home schooled athlete must apply to the association for a waiver of its initial eligibility rules, submitting documents proving what they were taught at home meet N.C.A.A. standards. Under these standards a home schooled athlete who has sufficiently high standardized test scores and proof that they took at least 13 courses that meet the associations core course standards may be automatically awarded freshman eligibility (Blum, 1996). From the recent decisions handed down by the courts, public school teachers and schools are expected to cooperate with home school educators. The hostility between the two groups has began to disappear and the focus has returned to seeing that the students get the best education they can. If both sides of the spectrum continue to work together this can be achieved.

Why Is the Sea Blue

Have you ever wondered why the sea is blue? Have you noticed that the ocean appears a different color in different regions? Here you can learn more about the color of the ocean. Depending on where you are, the sea may look very blue, green, or even gray or brown. Yet if you gather a bucket of sea water, it will look clear. So why does the ocean have color when you look into, or across it? When we look at the ocean, we see the colors that are reflected back to our eyes. The colors that we see in the ocean are determined by what is in the water, and what colors it absorbs and reflects. Sometimes, the Ocean Is Green Water with lots of phytoplankton (tiny plants) in it will have low visibility and look greenish- or grayish-blue. That is because the phytoplankton contains chlorophyll. The chlorophyll absorbs blue and red light, but reflects yellow-green light. So this is why plankton-rich water will look green to us. Sometimes, the Ocean Is Red Ocean waters may even be red, or a reddish color during a red tide. Not all red tides show up as red water, but the ones that do are because of the presence of dinoflagellate organisms that are reddish in color. Usually, We Think of the Ocean As Blue Visit a tropical ocean, like in southern Florida or the Caribbean, and the water is likely to be a beautiful turquoise color. This is because of the absence of phytoplankton and particles in the water. When sunlight goes through the water, water molecules absorb red light but reflect blue light, making the water appear a brilliant blue. Closer to Shore, the Ocean May Be Brown In areas closer to shore, the ocean may appear a muddy brown. This is due to sediments being stirred-up from the ocean bottom, or entering the ocean through streams and rivers. In the deep sea, the ocean is dark. That is because there is a limit to the depth of ocean that light can enter. At about 656 feet (200 meters), there isnt much light, and the sea is totally dark at about 3,280 feet (2,000 meters). The Ocean Also Reflects the Sky Color To some extent, the ocean also reflects the color of the sky. That is why when you look across the ocean, it may look gray if it is cloudy, orange if it is during sunrise or sunset, or brilliant blue if it is a cloudless, sunny day. Resources and Further Information Helmenstine, A.M. Why Is the Ocean Blue?. ThoughtCo. Accessed March 25, 2013.Mitchell, G. Voyager: Why Is the Ocean Blue?. Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Accessed March 25, 2013.NOAA Ocean Facts. The Ocean Acts As a Sunlight Filter.  Accessed March 25, 2013.Rice, T. 2009. Why Is the Sea Blue? In Do Whales Get the Bends?. Sheridan House: New York.Library of Congress. Why Is the Ocean Blue?. Accessed March 25, 2013.