Paper 2: Evaluating the Conversation of an Argument / Summary and Synthesis Paper

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Psychological Impacts of GamingIntroduction
Many people have been questioning the role that video games play in the society, especially to the avid players who are majorly the youth and the children. The debate that has been raging has focused on the negative and some positive aspects of the video games. The proponents view the video games as a positive influence on the human mind and in the society, sharpening the mind and improving the level of reasoning capabilities. However, the people who oppose video games believe that they are more destructive especially to the children and the adolescents. In this case, they can cause the children who are addicted to developing antisocial behavior that may not auger well with the social norms (Smyth 717-21). Also, the video game proponents can still read positive impacts of video games. This makes some people believe that playing video games develop social skills as the people share and play together, while others still assert that video games are important in the cognitive development of the children and youth that plays them. People who are concerned with the child education associate video games with psychomotor attributes that would lead to improved coordination of the child responses in the sensory organs including the eyes and the hands. Moreover, people still believe that video games can make children aggressive especially when not properly controlled. So the major question that remains not answered is whether to let the children play or not to play the video games.

It would, however, be useful to note that video games are only as good as the guidance that parents give to children in accessing and consuming the games.
Trends in Video Games
The video games were first commercially introduced in the early 1970s with Nutting Associates studios take the precedence of the first released commercially traded public video game (Kent 48). Since the time of video game commercialization, people have found great use of the social entertainment tool. The use of video game has been highly ingrained in the youth and the younger generation with many making it the sole pastime activity (Egenfeldt-Nielsen 27-32). In the year 2013, at least 81% of the American youth had got an interaction with a video game. At the same time, there were at least 8.5% of the American youths that were addicted to the various forms of video games. On average, the teenagers spent almost 14 hours of their daily time playing video games especially if they were out of school (Lenhart 164). This raised a lot of concern to the parents and other child development stakeholders that questioned the role of the video games in the social, moral and physical development of the children. Staiano publication on the social impacts that the video games may have on the children illustrated a direct relationship between the amounts of time spent on the screens and the level of sociability of the children in the society, a concept that is mostly studied under social isolation of the children’s behaviors (Staiano, 93-8).
Conversations on Video Game Impacts on Children
Child educators have attributed the development of the video game to the low performance of the children in school. At the same time, the educators agree that the use of the video games as a learning realia is the most effective way to give instructions to the children as it encompasses most of the blooms taxonomy requirements. Playing video games means that the child uses both the physical strength, the cognitive coordination, the psychological aspect as well as many other attributes of learning needs. However, a video game used in the society without proper control will mean that the child will spend most of the day repeating the same game without the well-defined learnable target at the end of the day (Ravaja 385-7). The fact that children cannot associate the video games they play to the learning objectives means that they waste time on the video games, thus making then have less time to read and practice for their school assignments. The interconnected factors ultimately lead to poor performance in schools, a fact that makes many people believe that indeed video games can contribute to the low cognitive development of the children addicted to the source of entertainment.
Those people who believe that video games should be abolished cite underdevelopment of the exclusion from the social reality as the major reasons as to why they abhor video games. In some cases, video games are a depiction of volatility and aggressiveness. These are some of the attribute and negative traits that children may adopt and attempt to practice in real life with devastating effects and impacts. Markey hypothesizes that the increase in child aggressive behavior can be traced down to the adiction of the video games with violent content that can lead to aggressive behavior in teens (Markey, 277). Moreover, some theorists have associated video games with the general poor psychomotor development of the child is important in the society. Since the children playing games spend most of their time in a sedentary kind of life, they get less time to get involved in the physical exercise that would be healthy for complete personal development.
On the contrary, many people who are pro video games have highlighted numerous benefits that the children get exposed to when they play video games. The ability to follow instructions begin from the children participation in the playing of the video games, as an attempt to violate the rules makes the child lose the game. The children are also able to associate problem solving and logical skills behind the development of the problem solutions. This means that video games are useful in sharpening then child focus, decisions making capabilities, and quick thinking.
According to Boot publications of 2006, the child can improve on its hand-eye coordination, a factor that also leads to an enhanced psychomotor skills (Boot 226). Therefore the children who get their time to play videos can become good planners, quality resource managers, and ability to relate abstract facts in three-dimensional spheres or logistics.
In many cases, children who are addicted to the video games have also been found to have better multitasking capabilities than the children who are not exposed to quality time on the video games. In this case, Multitasking, simultaneous tracking, and managing multiple objectives becomes core attribute of the avid gamers. In this regard, educators have also attributed the development of quality reading and math skills to the experiences that students get when they play video games. In line with the math and reading skills, Charness adds that pattern recognition and cognitive development becomes an ingrained part of the child memory capabilities (Charness 26-7).
There is high possibility that the video games also improve the children’s ability to carry out deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and hypothesis testing. Rosenberg believes that the video games leads to the development of improved ability among the avid gamers to rapidly and accurately recognize patterns, data, and information even with less labeling and explanations (Rosenberg 375-6).
As a way to disapprove the people who believe that video games may lead to antisocial behaviors, the possibility of developing and getting involved in the teamwork scenarios that require cooperation when games are played with others leads to the social development domain in the children who are also committed game addicts. Such children are attributable to the high-level development of the strategy and anticipation skills that may be useful in the development of the life skills for problem-solving.
In general, those people who have been the greatest critics of the social video game addiction have outlined major problems that the video games may have on the children. From the possibility of teaching and learning the wrong social values on the society the poor academic performance, the people cannot dissociate the video games from many of the unwanted behaviors in children. The element of obesity is also another major scorecard for the people who criticize the addiction to the video games in the society. Since most of the gamers spend most of their day seated down, cancel of developing obesity is very high. They thus encourage the children get out and away from the computers into the field to engage in physical activities that may improve their heath lives.
Conclusion
The quality and the quantity of the idea games are core factors that may determine if they are fine materials to include in the child development paths in the society. Children who are exposed to the negative materials without the parental guidance must always reap negative impacts in the society. Moreover, these children who spend most of their time playing video games do not have time for physical exercise, and therefore have the possibility of developing obese lifestyle. Also, children who play video games without any meaningful objectives attached to learning concepts may not be able to read much of the benefits possible with video games, in this regard, video games become negative components of the society.
On the other hand, children who play video games under moderation, possibly under the watchful eyes of the guardian have the opportunity to learn a lot from the games themselves. Video games that are moderated in quality and quantity, with the players only exposed to the correct amount of materials, end up gaining life problem-solving skills, analytical skills, and educational skills. Such children become better math readers thus improving their level of understanding of content and materials. Children who are part of the controlled gamers and thus incorporate learnable objectives with the video games improves their overall benefits from the video game playing.
Therefore, what matters is the level of control when the children are exposed to the video games, children with quality parental and teacher controls have the chance to learn from the video games, while children who are left to play on their own without moderations cannot learn much of the video game addictions. This concept hover remains open for future reach that may help explore the core areas in which children may learn important skills and in areas in which they can also get destruction from watching video games.

Works Cited
Boot, Walter Richard, Daniel P. Blakely, and Daniel J. Simons. “Do action video games improve perception and cognition?” Frontiers in Psychology 2 (2011): 226.
Charness, Neil. “Video games as a means to reduce age-related cognitive decline: attitudes, compliance, and effectiveness.” Video Games as Tools to Achieve Insight into Cognitive Processes (2015): 26- 59.
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca. Understanding video games: The essential introduction. Routledge, 2016.
Kent, Steve L. The ultimate history of video games: The story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world. 2015.
Lenhart, Amanda. “Teens, Social Media & Technology overview 2015.” Pew Research Center 9 (2015).
Markey, Patrick M., Charlotte N. Markey, and Juliana E. French. “Violent video games and real-world violence: Rhetoric versus data.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 4.4 (2015): 277.
Ravaja, Niklas, et al. “Spatial presence and emotions during video game playing: Does it matter with whom you play?” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 15.4 (2006): 381-392.
Rosenberg, Bradley H., Douglas Landsite, and Timothy D. Averch. “Can video games be used to predict or improve laparoscopic skills?” Journal of Endourology 19.3 (2005): 372-376.
Staiano, Amanda E., and Sandra L. Calvert. “Exergames for physical education courses: Physical, social, and cognitive benefits.” Child development perspectives 5.2 (2011): 93-98.
Smyth, Joshua M. “Beyond self-selection in video game play: an experimental examination of the consequences of massively multiplayer online role-playing game play.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 10.5 (2007): 717-721.