Is gaming a hazard to the United States of America?
Video games in general are not damaging, it is what you do with them that makes them destructive. Many arguments about video games in general have been incorrect, and also been completely biased. The endless scruple over whether video games are beneficial to America’s youth has expanded from how media as a whole can corrupt the youth of America, as well as how irresponsible adults have left their own children to die as they satisfy their own addiction. On the other hand the arguments shown are how some people believe that boys will be boys, how media in general can have an overall big effect on a child’s moral standards, how video games can make you think strategically, and finally the general benefits that any type of video game has to offer. All of these arguments have been a boiling topic for the greater part of 35 years. The purpose of this piece of Rhetoric is to give readers a second look at the popular belief among parents everywhere that video games are threatening to the youth of America. People far and wide need to comprehend that in reality, video games are objects of safety. Opponent M. Lee argued against the use of video games in her paper, Video Games Are Addictive and Promote Irresponsible Behavior. She used a substantial amount of Pathos – which is when a writer takes what they know about their audience, and use that knowledge to appeal to the audience’s – to make you never want to buy your child a video game console. The credibility of Lee’s paper is dismal, to say the least, in her use of sources. She takes educated guesses when she explains the scientific evidence that she includes in her argument. Lee herself states, “In a perfect world, video games would only be used for positive educational, and social ends.” (Lee, 2011) She said this right in the middle of all her scientific evidence. I find it to be irrelevant because she furthers her use of Pathos in that sentence. Although she has many credible sources to back up her statement, I believe that she has no idea what she is talking about. Especially when it came to her evidence she did not know how to use that to her advantage. Throughout her paper she only targets violent video games, forgetting about all the other kinds like fantasy and adventure. Within Fantasy and Adventure, one thing that they can learn from both of these is the extremely long journeys they take just to find someone or look for something to give to someone. If this were to happen today no one would want to walk farther than a mile anywhere. A child could learn from a game that was incredibly hard back in the day to get from place to place if you wanted to. Many other thought about the Medieval ages may come up, thus encouraging that child to do some research on that particular time period. The tone of her words make out all video games to be a hazard for the world’s youth. Even though there are some bad effects that happen in the world such as neglected children and the Columbine Shooting were associated with violent video games. I do not believe that the video game itself should be solely blamed for all of these deaths. Instead the irresponsible players should be blamed. The next piece I read was called, FAQs on Video Games and Other Media Violence, written by Craig A. Anderson Ph.D. I was glad to see that he put video games and media in his writings. He discusses everything that I had ever questioned about this topic. Such as, where are violent and sexual TV programs in this whole argument? I see this topic as idiocracy because it seems too simple for a video game to completely alter a child’s/ adolescent’s perception of life and death within such a short amount of time. To start off he says, “… there are reasons to believe that violent video games may have a large harmful effect than violent TV and film effect. This is a very difficult research question, and film effect. This is a very difficult research question, and