Introduction of Gaming Topic

By: Joe Shlabotnik

     In today's society, video games are virtually unavoidable.  Most people have either played, seen, or at least heard of video games.  Although video games are increasingly popular, there is a lot of debate about the negative effects.  For example, teaching young children violence is a huge video game controversy and worthy of being investigated.
     However, with so much worry and emphasis put on the negative effects of video games, sometimes the positive effects go unnoticed.  Fortunately, more research is being devoted to determining the positive effects on children, adults, and older people.  For example, one article by Art Markman of Psychology Today examines a study that was done to compare extensive video game players and non-players.  The study found the video game players were just as accurate at performing object finding tasks as non-players but were much faster in doing so.  Another article by Chacha Tumbokon lists many positive and negative effects of video games, but the positive list tends to be much longer.  For instance, she discusses that playing video games can help children become better listeners and problem solvers, assists in hand-eye coordination, and can even help develop math and reading skills.
     So, with this school of thought that believes video games can have a positive effect on people of all ages, throughout the course of the semester, I plan on blogging about the positive effects of video games, including finding research that either supports or disproves positive effects, focusing on different positive effects, and focusing on the different positive effects for different age groups.  As I began to do more research, though, other topics and ideas may present themselves for blogging.