Communication for IT Professionals

The effects of Video Games on the behavior, academic results and health of
the adolescents

Executive Summary

During the evolution of the world industry, the growth of Information Technology also
increasing, so thus the development of video games. Because of the large evolution
of video games, many people are triggered as to what impact can society faced
when they are being dependence on it. Hence, the question as to do video games
have both positive and negative impacts on adolescents’ behavior, academic results,
and health? are very intriguing.

The purpose of this report is first, to give valuable insight into video games' impact
on youth. Secondly, the positive impact that video games gave to the users, and the
negative impact that come along with it. Thirdly, the evolution of the video games
industry. Finally, how to cope with the negative impact. Both positive and negative
impacts make it is so clear that video games should be concluded as an ethical issue
on which will be discussed in the following report.

Introduction

This report will discuss an initial response to some ethical and social dimensions of
technology in the context of how video games affect adolescent behavior and
academic results. The most concerning issue is the aggressive behavior of
teenagers because of their dependencies on video games. There are several types
of aggressive behavior, from bullying and physical fighting to criminal assault and
even homicide. In the present, teenagers are more spontaneous and braver on
making decisions for their life and because of this, they tend to face more risks.

The topic of the paper is the effect of video games on adolescent behavior,
academic results along with any health conditions. Several issues that will be
covered in this report are first, how video games contribute to teenager life and why
it can affect their behavior positively and negatively. Secondly, how video games can
have a higher impact on males rather than females in terms of the level of

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aggression. Thirdly, on how it can affect the health condition of the subject both
positively and negatively.

The position of the report is to confirm that video games do have both a positive and
negative impact on the adolescent’s behavior, academic results and health
conditions. Thus, this report will focus on proving this hypothesis with many
arguments and facts obtained from multiple academic resources.

The report will then be contained of reasoning for the position in the following
sequence. Firstly, it will discuss the evolution of the youngster dependencies on
video games throughout the period. Secondly, it will be discussing how it is started to
make a change in the behavior, academic results and the behavior of the teenagers.
Finally, it will conclude the final perspective of video games impact with the
adolescent.

Evolution of adolescents’ dependence on video games over time.

Since the late 1970s, most adolescents have already been playing video games as
their preferred leisure activities. The data in figure 1 shows that there is a high
increment of games played in Australian household between the year 2005 until
2011, the gap difference is up to 16% and from 2013 until 2017, the number keeps
stable which lies on fix number of 93%.

Figure 1: Households with games over time(Source: Brand et al. 2017, p.8)

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Based on Dill's (1998) theory, the fact that male adolescents spend more time
playing video games than female adolescents does not matter as they both are
playing video games regularly (Kirsh 2003). Another theory was also found by
Roberts et al. stating that the lower the age group is, it does not matter if it’s a male
or female, the lower the video gameplay will be.

There is various type of video games genre exist in the gaming industry, such as
sports simulations, adventures, fantasies, etc. Research shows that both male and
female adolescents choose to play violent video games (Kirsh 2003), which is
supported by a study result that shows the majority of video games sales are on the
violent video games type. According to Dietz (1998), It contributes 80% of the market
sales (Kirsh 2003).

Even more, the gaming industries are now kept generating revenues in the billions
(Errenli 2013).According to Adachi and Willoughby (2013), video games are one of
the fastest-growing entertainment forms in society, with a global market value of $67
billion in 2010 and a predicted value of $112 billion by 2015. It is stated by Lenhart et
al (2008) that 97% of American youth are playing either computer, web, portable or
even a console video games and more surprisingly 31% of the sample is playing the
video games every day whereas the other play for at least 3-5 days a week.

Impact of video games towards adolescent behavior, academic results, and

health condition

The reason why society play varies depends on which age groups they are lay on.
Younger people tend to play video games just to pass their time and have fun. Adults
have the same reason for playing video games too which is to have fun but another
reason is they want to de-stress from their life. Whereas as for the older groups, they
play games mainly to keep an active mind.

Impact on behavior
Recently there is a statement that said there is positive correlation between level of
aggression and the amount of time playing video games, but, in fact at present, a

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small number of prospective design have conducted a research regarding this matter
and the results have been arguing that the aggression measures do not necessarily
tap well into level of serious violence act (Ferguson 2011).

Along with the rapid growth of technology, there is also an increment in games'
impact on attitudes and behaviors of people. For example, when children are playing
video games, they keep on imagine that they exist in that game and they can get
emotional and get addicted to that game. The evidence is got from a study that
examined outcomes such as filling in the missing letter for words, where children
tend to write “kill” rather than “kiss” and those behavior is considered more
aggressive (Farrar et al. 2013).

Despite whether individual perspective research on believing or not believing the

direct impact of violent video games towards youth. Ferguson (2011) has an
argument saying that such studies outcomes should just be generalized into
competitiveness rather than aggression or perhaps it is just mild aggression which is
the same case as when teenagers sticking tongues out at each other.

Another type of studies conducted to prove the fact that violent video games directly
caused players to behave aggressively is conducted by Whitaker & Bushman (2009),
they stated that a violent video game player would give a louder noise blast to their
opponents than those who don’t. In addition to that, based on Calvert & Tan's (1994)
research, playing violent video games can also increase aggressive thought. The
reason is it might trigger the player to interpret the situation they faced on their daily
life in a more aggressive way which is known as hostile attribution bias according to
Anderson & Ford (1986) (Whitaker & Bushman 2009). However, Ferguson (2011)
starts to argue that there is an almost 0 correlation between video game violence
use and serious aggression because of the underlying third variables such as
gender, environment, family attachment, etc.

Another kind of studies which is conducted by Anderson et al (2008) also states that
there is a negative correlation between violent video games and aggression in the
US and Japanese children. However, there is, in fact, a positive impact of video
games and adolescent behavior which is the executive control function. Video

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games have been recognized as good media to do cognitive training which can lead
to an improvement in cognitive performance over time (Ferguson 2011).

Impact on Academic Results

By playing video games as leisure activities every day can constantly reduce the
time of adolescent to study and do their homework. According to Colwell (1995), It is
academically proven that boys are unsuccessful because they spend more time
playing video games (Rrudhani 2017).

Another study also conducted by Brand et al. (2017), they asked parents how much
impact does the video game have on their child school performance. The majority
choose to say that video games can motivate their child to study and it is also a good
media to be used to teach students.

Figure 2: Effect on using video games at schools. Modified from Brand et al. (2017)

As presented in figure 2, 71% of the sample agreed that video games have a good
effect on teaching students academically. There is no big difference between the
other aspect which is motivating students with 70%. As in the case of Helping
teachers to teach and helping students to pay attention, the parents agreed for 63%
for the former and 64% for the latter.

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Another potential benefit of video games was also found. Brand et al. (2017) asked
multiple adults to answer whether they are agreed or disagreed that video games
have a wide range of advantages on learning. A 19 years old anonymous female
said that “Some games like cooking mama, have taught me different skills I needed
to grow as an adult”. Whereas, 86% of the sample agreed that they gain general
knowledge by playing games and many of them were also stated that they gain
cultural knowledge and life skills from playing video games.

Impact on Health Condition

Apart from behavior factors, there is a health condition factor. There is proven
evidence which is proved by Brand et al. (2017) saying that most adolescents play
video games for at least 89 minutes every day and it does have a positive and
negative impact on their health condition. In the early stage of a people's growth
phase, there is a structural change in the brain and adolescents lose one-half of their
prepubertal neocortical synapses. As a result, it may limit the prefrontal cortex’s
ability to figure out situations efficiently.

Of note, hormones may also influence the aforementioned increase in aggressive

behavior, hormones called adrenarche and gonadarche which is increasing during
the early stage of human growth have a positive correlation with aggressive
behavior. Another type of factor is by playing video games there will be an increment
on a gonadal hormone that will directly be responsible for fear and anger on the
human body (Kirsh 2003).

On the other hand, there is also a positive impact of video games on adolescent
health conditions. As presented in figure 2, more than half of the sample stated that
there is a positive effect of video games in their life, firstly they feel improvement on
their thinking skills level, it can also maintain the emotional state of ones and can
reduce the anxiety of many people through playing video games.

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Figure 3: Video games positive impact on health. Adapted from Brand et al. (2017)

Besides, there is not only an advantage for adolescents during their youth but also
an advantage in their wellbeing in the future. Research conducted by Brand et al.
(2017) also stated that 90% of the research participants agree that playing video
games, ones can increase their mental stimulation. The other crucial impact is that
80% of the sample stated that by playing video games, they can potentially fighting
dementia and improving their life satisfaction along with maintaining their optimism
and social connections.

Conclusion
As a result, there is proven evidence that the association between video games and
adolescent behavior exists. The conclusion of the discussion above is a verification
of how video games affect the behavior, academic results and health condition of
teenagers.

The impact of gamification towards adolescent behavior can vary into many types of
behavior which are aggressive and bullying traits, however, on the bright side, there
is an increment on student level of competitive level. All of these significant changes
occur due to the unstable emotional state of an individual on an early stage of growth
and because of that, children tend to feel more emotional when they are playing
video games. For instance, when one plays “mobile legends” which is one of the
most popular games at present, they tend to be mad when they can’t beat the other
team and that’s why the competitiveness level of the subject increase.

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In terms of the impact on teenagers’ academic results, it does have a negative effect
in terms of the amount of time the student can spend to do their homework and study
at home. However, by playing video games, a student can have high problem-
solving skills and they used to work as a team. This advantage is really useful for
teenagers’ future life because they have already used to work in a different type of
environment and work together with different kinds of people with different kind of
backgrounds too.

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Erenli, K. 2013, ‘The impact of Gamification’, International conference on Interactive

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Ferguson, C.J. 2011, ‘Video Games and youth Violence: A Prospective Analysis in
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Ferguson, C.J. & Olson, C.K. 2014, ‘Video Game Violence Use Among “Vulnerable”
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Rrudhani, N. 2017, ‘Effects of Video Games on Aggressive Behaviors of

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