Video Games is Ruining Society

Thanks for the quick reply rsgather. ==Burden of proof== My opponent doesn't contest the burden of proof. He agrees that he must show that society is "destroyed completely" or "damaged irreparably." This is a higher standard than merely showing isolated instances where video games are bad. ==Rebuttal== R1) Video game violence My opponent claims all video games cause violence, but offers only two examples. His first example, from 2004, is when 3 teens got really drunk, started throwing rocks at a homeless man "for fun," and ended up killing him.[1] If anything, blame alcohol. One teen did say that killing the homeless man "reminded him" of a video game. If A reminds you of B, that doesn't mean that A forced you to do B. Same fallacy: Blood reminds me of Santa Clause's suit; therefore, Santa is responsible for all my murders. The Daniel Petric example from 2007 is bad; Daniel was obviously a highly disturbed individual. However, it wasn't very smart of his father to lock up his Xbox360 in the same safe as a 9mm handgun and then leave the key somewhere Daniel could find it. [2] If anything, this might prove that handguns are destroying our society. Had Danielle found his Xbox360 and empty air in the safe, it'd be a lot harder to kill his parents with empty air. Various studies show that handguns in the home are more likely to kill a loved one than an intruder. [3] Ultimately, my opponent's case rests on two isolated examples. We should look to broader data to see whether video games have led to more violence: 1. The video game market has exploded over the last 30 years. If video games lead to violence, we should have seen an explosion in youth violence. Federal crime statistics show that juvenile crime rates are at a 30 year low. [4] 2. "According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure." [4] 3. Video game playing is not anti-social behavior. "Almost 60 percent of frequent gamers play with friends. Thirty-three percent play with siblings and 25 percent play with spouses or parents." [4] 4. Video games do not desensitize us to violence. Multiple studies on primates and humans show that we can draw clear distinctions between play/fake fighting and real fighting. [4] 5. The first long-term longitudinal study on video game violence was conducted by two professors from the University of Illinois. [5] Longitudinal studies are superior because they follow the same group (cohort) of kids for a long time period and study *real world* behavior, rather than asking simulated survey questions in a laboratory. The study found that people who played violent video games did not experience more aggression in their real life relationships than a control group that did not play video games; they did not argue more frequently with friends or parents, etc. The study is also superior because it randomly assigned people to the "play violent video games" group or control group. Most studies on video game violence are flawed because they study groups of kids who are already predisposed to violence and thus find extremely violent games intriguing. 6. Scott Cunningham conducted a study entitled "Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime," trying to explain why crime has declined with the rise of video games. He theorizes that video games allow violent individuals to play out their fantasies in simulated scenarios rather than in real life, reducing actual violence. [6] So video games actually reduce real world violence. R2) Addiction Anything, taken to an extreme, can be addictive. There are sex addicts in our society – that doesn't mean that sex is "ruining our society." If anything, it is keeping it running. Unlike cigarettes, video games do not contain anything in them that is INHERENTLY addictive and are thus not a bad product. Some people with addictive personalities merely abuse them; the same people could be huffing glue, but instead they play Halo 3. In fact, Halo 3 may be a safer addiction than the other things these addictive types might get addicted to. My opponent claims that 97% of teens play video games. However, the breakdown is more like 90% of boys and 40% of girls. [4] In addition, he claims, like this source here, that 1 in 8 gamers (around 12%) show "signs of addictive behavior." [7] However, the breakdown is more like 10% are "at risk of addiction" and 2 percent are fully addicted to video games. [8] 2 percent addiction rates are normal for any product; at least 2% of food users are addicts; at least 2% of exercisers are exercise addicts; at least 2% of marijuana users are addicted; at least 2% of the sexually active are sex addicts. Just because a few individuals abuse something to the point where it becomes an addiction DOES NOT prove that that product is "ruining society." In fact, I'd rather have someone hooked on Halo 3 than on cocaine; the real problem is people with addictive personality types, NOT the products themselves. ==My case== Video games are good 1. Mitch Wade, an information consultant for Rand Corp. and Google, wrote a book called "Got Game," where he discusses how studies show that moderate gamers have vastly better problem solving ability, team play, and careful risk-taking than non-gamers. [9] Video games often present complex puzzles that help youngsters develop complex thought processes; they teach team building skills since there are many levels in video games that cannot be beat without the help of either a real life or AI partner, and lastly, VERY FEW people in our society like to take risks, since we are very risk averse. Yes business DEMANDS we sometimes take risks, and video games help gamers learn when to take a risk and when not to. 2. John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at MIT, has concluded that the adaptive difficulty of video games makes people keep playing and learning, when a normal person would quit, by sucking the player in, providing rewards for continuing, and only ramping up the difficulty as the game progresses. Ultimately, he concludes that playing video games makes you smarter and is an easy way to learn. [10] In fact, Stephen Johnson wrote a whole book on the subject called "Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter." 3. Video games can help socially awkward kids. A study by Nick Yee found that "many younger players report becoming more comfortable with face-to-face communication after playing MMORPGs." [11] For extremely socially awkward youth, online games are a good way to learn rudimentary social skills and defeat some social anxiety regarding interacting with others. 4. A study by Shawn Green & Daphne Bavelier video game players have better hand-eye coordination and visuo-motor skills, have more resistance to distraction, have more sensitivity to information in the peripheral vision and have a greater ability to count briefly presented objects, than non-players. They also found that video games develop the individual's intelligence, and in social games develop the social capabilities of the individual. [12] 5. NPR reports: "Daphne Bavelier is professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. She studies young people playing action video games. Having now conducted more than 20 studies on the topic, Bavelier says, ‘It turns out that action video games are far from mindless.' Her studies show that video gamers show improved skills in vision, attention and certain aspects of cognition. And these skills are not just gaming skills, but real-world skills. They perform better than non-gamers on certain tests of attention, speed, accuracy, vision and multitasking, says Bavelier." 6. Video games are being used increasingly as a teaching tool. For example, teachers are using games like Civilization to get students thinking about important global questions, like "what happens to a civilization once it becomes a superpower?" What problems does it then face? [14] My World History teacher in high school used an old video game to show why the US and Russia dominated the globe; he gave us each a country, and we each started with certain resources. Smart play was still important; my partner and I placed 8th with Sudan; but the USA won first every single year because it had so many more resources than all the other countries. So video games have multiple positive benefits for society. Vote Con. [1] My opponent's source [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] Kellerman (1993) [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] http://tinyurl.com... [7] http://tinyurl.com... [8] Faiola, Anthony. Washington Post. May 27, 2006 [9] http://tinyurl.com... [10] http://tinyurl.com... [11] http://tinyurl.com... [12] http://tinyurl.com... [13] http://tinyurl.com... [14] http://tinyurl.com...