Video Games: A cause of violence and aggression

          The main Idea of “Video Games: A cause of violence and aggression” is to persuade people that there need to be more strict laws against video games. The information in the paper seems to be not very reliable. Although it is an .edu site, it is a student part of the site, so it is not scholarly. As a student, the author is using a lot of slant in the paper, for example, in the end the author directly states that “there needs to be a stricter regulation regarding the availability of these games to young children” that is clearly the viewpoint of the author and it has likely created bias in the paper. Secondly, the paper was made in 2003, a long time ago. With computer technology it can be very easy for something to be outdated very quickly. Usually for computers, a two year article is out of date, so a 9 year article would be unbelievable. If you read my last article you would see that the book was slightly less out of date but was still a little behind. So why did I go easy on “Opposing Viewpoint: Video Games”? Because the book led to other authors who are still making new books so I could continue research. In this article however, five out of the seven links the author gave me were broken.

Third, there is a comments section where most people not only disagree, but give evidence and disprove the writer’s arguments (to be honest though, not many of them provided links.). For example the writer said that the boys from columbine used Doom to plan for their attack and that Doom was used in the military “to train to kill”. Multiple people in the comments stated that the columbine story was only a myth, never to be proven and that the Military used Doom for tactical training. I clarified their statements myself with the US military (http://www.army.mil/article/11936/History_of_Military_

gamin) about Doom, however I didn’t clear the Columbine myth because unless I have The Mythbusters with me, I can’t do that. In conclusion I think this author let too much of her opinion get in the way to create an accurate representation for video games. (PS: Just to prove that I’m not just disagreeing with the view point, here’s an article that does a better job of representing anti-videogames. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/16099971/ns/technology_and_science-games/)

Opposing Viewpoints: Video Games

                The Main Idea of the book “Opposing Viewpoint: Video Game” is to inform the general public about the many viewpoints about videogames. To say that this information is accurate is like saying someone has a right opinion. Most information in this book is created through opinions and some articles are bias. This can askew some viewpoints and create inaccurate data sometimes. However, at the same time the whole book includes all the other opinions (not just opposites, everything in between as well) keeping your mind open to discussion, conflicting evidence, and an “accurate” representation of what people think of videogames. Also, when a study is put in a book, it is often a scholarly source. For example, in section 1 “viewpoint” 2, the book quotes the study “A cross-sectional analysis of Video games and Attention Deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms in adolescents” that is from a .gov website, which are known to be the most reliable URL. When it is not by a scholarly source it will be by a well known author like Marc Prensky in section 1 “viewpoint 1”who is a well known speaker and writer. I honestly say that I don’t know his sources, however judging by his educational background (masters from Yale) he would likely use a reliable source. This book was made in 2006, which might make some data inaccurate or obsolete, however, it is still reliable because the studies are still accurate and opinions are still present so that you can strengthen your own viewpoint, not the author’s. So in conclusion this book is filled with many reliable sources and surprisingly will not persuade with opinions, but to inform.