Research Artifact: Final Project
Made By: Parker O'Sullivan
Around the start of the 1950s and 1960s, video games were created by scientists to test the newfound game engines and advanced technology (of that time). They would be considered small animations by scientists to test their abilities at coding and creating games. When tested by the public, they were deemed, "fun", "enjoyable", and such. Video games since then have massively improved in a short time, with things like home consoles, Personal Computers (PCs), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), mobile, and quite a bit more. With all of the new types of technology that come into this world, newer generations have become more naturalized and normalized (like our generation).
With video games being normalized and having many different ways to play them, a lot of different emotions and feelings are being used through the human senses. When someone is playing a video game or using any of today's technology, they are using touch, vision, and hearing when being used. Three of the five senses are being used, aside from smell and taste. These three senses are crucial to properly playing video games. The human sense is in overdrive and is hyperfocused on what is being played, whether it is something you are viewing or playing. When the player loses the game they are playing after being hyperfocused, they tend to become upset, sad, and mad as a mixture of emotions that will explode depending on how long they are playing or what they are doing. This causes negative emotions to seep out and cause negative effects in the real world. People with anger issues could take things out of hand, whether it would be to break the system they are playing on, their surroundings, or other problems that depend on what they are playing.
Many other factors can go into what video games you play, whether the game is relaxing and calm for the player to enjoy the calm environment, some action that isn't hard, or strategy with a bit of wit is needed to help the player survive the environment. There is a multitude of elements that determines how you are going to feel. Parents can also be a factor in what a child is viewing or playing as well, so some games like Call Of Duty, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Seige, Grand Theft Auto, and many more could be games that parents don't want their kids to be playing as such an age. A source I found stated, "Violent video games provide opportunities for children to explore the consequences of violent actions and to develop their moral compasses virtually. They also allow people to release their stress and anger in the game, which leads to less real-world aggression." As a child born in the early 2000s, my parents never had a preference for the games I played, they only just started restricting games that my younger brother can play, based on the times now. A government source stated, “Video games have thus been widely studied as a potential cause for aggressive cognitions and behavior (Anderson et al. 2010; Carnagey and Anderson 2004), emotional problems such as depression (Tortolero et al. 2014), and hyperactivity and inattention (Gentile et al. 2012).”
With age comes the certain emotions that the player may have during their experiences.
Some common emotions that the player could have are happiness, sadness, anger (definitely), and relaxation. There can be moods you have too, such as having a lot of energy, the sense of positivity you get from being in these worlds, and more. Some possible and negative side effects from games could be things like insomnia, depression, eating less, being less social (if you are a solo player), and other possibilities. With possible negative reactions, there are some positive ones to counteract, such as games helping with depression in some cases, they do help you clear your mind of situations that are around you, your household, and even in the problems in the world today, like Covid-19 and the newer Russia-Ukraine situation. Another factor can be considered in helping children in that perspective, by shielding them from those problems being shown around the world. Though it may help, it may cause an early addiction if people are taken into the gaming verse too far, to see people making videos or streaming games every day encourages the youth and some adults to try this sorta thing out and might cause addiction to games.
Using the internet to see how other people fare and react when playing games is a good factor to gauge how it affects people. Most sites I looked into had information that shows how bad or negative some video games can be as an influence on people of all ages. One of the sites had shown an issue that I personally can face, “When you play video games, your brain releases a constant dopamine supply, with occasional random bursts. Over time, your brain gets used to this steady supply of dopamine, and the nucleus accumbens requires even more dopamine release for gaming to feel fun. That prevents you from enjoying anything that is not as stimulating as a video game.” This occurs quite a bit after you have been playing for some time in the same environment, whether it is a good community, toxic, or just not healthy for you as the player to be in. I also do find it hard at times to find some older activities I used to find fun and interesting, like golf, fishing, and some other activities as boring, and do tend to have a bit of time playing video games or working now instead. Though that may happen and I could be considered addicted, another article had this to say about how video games affect people, “They found that, in players who had high levels of distress, playing for escape and playing for competition was more likely to be associated with gaming addiction. To contrast with this, playing to cope with psychiatric symptoms in and of itself – not to escape from them – was protective. These players were able to use games to reduce levels of stress and anxiety without it becoming problematic.”
Though games can cause a lot of negative emotions, there can be a lot of good emotions that you can have, such as fulfillment, creativity, happiness, and overall a good time whether you are solo or with a group of people. Video games also give me comfort and have the “take me away from reality” moments that I can and do need in life. Everyone does need those types of moments, whether it's from something like technology or not, like books. Creation is my destress and I can do that in games, like the blog post I made for class that I had shown. A good example to show off my creativity is a previous blog post that I had done in another class that was showing off some of my creativity and talking about what I did with some context behind it.
Works Cited
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