Individual Growth Through Video Games

Video games do have a profound impact on the individuals that do play them, but I would disagree with the notion that we need to spend more of time playing games in an effort that it increases a person’s role in solving world problems.

For example, in my early years I spent every spare moment I had, from when I was in middle school up until high school graduation just playing various video games. Among these games include the likes of Final Fantasy, MMO’s such as World Of Warcraft and Guild Wars, to fighting games such as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. What appealed to me was the plot driven video games that focused on character development and an entertaining, having a rich story arch throughout the game, games such as Bioshock, Final Fantasy, and such were the ones that always stuck out to me the most. These games taught me many things that I could not learn in school, traits such as humility, friendship, caring for others, and it even helped me become more understanding of difficult language and foreign concepts that must children my age didn’t have to even think about.

Not only that, but I attended a high school that did not have a very safe and careful learning environment. Especially with children on the bus constantly making meaningless death threats, to teachers not caring about an individual’s problems, to constant family issues at the time, it all takes a toll on a young teenager’s world. It felt better to be able to escape for a couple hours and get lost into this world of fantasy and just learn from these virtual avatars that I couldn’t learn in this awful environment.

Yes, I argue that from video games I was able to learn some life skills and receive a better understanding of the world through them. However, I did not feel the need to suddenly get up and solve the world’s problems, if anything it gave me a better understanding of why things happen the way they do. It provided an escape from my problem’s and develop role models that never actually existed, which is why I developed such a parasocial relationship with these non-existent characters. Video games have the ability to teach us many things, but I do not think they have the ability to change the world like the author for our article today suggested.