Research memo #3

A typical video gamer.

Analysis:

This video is a wordless video; it was a small skit about the supposedly amazing life of a video gamer. It focuses on mundane actions and puts them in a light of sarcastic amazingness and awe. It is unfortunately how many teens are spending their time these days.

Analysis:

This is by far the most informative piece of media I have found. It is a documentary from 2007 by Chris Green, and it interviews 3 people about their thoughts on video game addiction. The interview included asking what games they played, if they thought video games were addictive, and, most relevant to my topic, if video games had ever interfered with their real life.

The first question was answered with games like Guild Wars and Star Wars Galaxy (keep in mind this video is from 2007). They said they played these games mainly because of the human interaction and the social environment of the games; the players ruled the game in many ways and they found that exciting or interesting.

The second question was answered without much thought; they did not think they were addicted to video games. I find this interesting, because they are all avid gamers. I believe that they may be addicted, or at least partially addicted to video games and not realize it. Addiction often comes with rationalizing the addiction, or making the addiction seem like it is not a big deal, so they may be doing this. It is completely possible that they aren't, though. However, there are many people, mainly teens, that are.

The answer to the last question question varied; there were 2 respondents, and the first one said no. He claimed that it was a harmless hobby and did not affect his real life at all. The second respondent, the girl, answered that they had affected her, but not directly her. She claimed her boyfriend "sometimes played a little too much", and that it was "on and off". She said that for weeks at a time he would not be able to put the controller down, and sometimes he would be able to leave it like it was not a big deal. I suspect this is due to things going on in-game; if he is playing a shooter game, for instance, and he is in the middle of an important match or fight, he will not want to leave because it could affect his score. This can also happen in Role Playing games, where if you are with a team of people fighting a monster or creating a guild, you will not want to leave in the middle of what you are doing. The times that the girl's boyfriend would be able to stop playing the game I suspect to be because he was not doing anything "important" in-game at that time.

Overall the video gave me a great amount of insight on my topic, as well as a couple of different points of view.

Research memo #2

Article 1 is an experiment on teens that deprived subjects of technology. The results showed that the teens had withdrawals from technology; many of the subjects dropped out of the experiment early due to their strong addiction. The remaining subjects struggled greatly with the time away from technology, and were limited to about a half hour per day. They were told to write in a journal about their experiences of how they were feeling, and all of them were showing much stress and anxiety. Most of them wrote things like “I don’t know how much longer I can do this”. This helps to show how badly teens are affected by video games and technology; a few months away from it causes them to want to quit from the experiment just to talk faster with friends.

These articles gave a lot of information about teen’s reliance and addiction to technology, specifically video games. It showed that with a restrictive limit on video games, it could help teens improve their grades and spend more time studying or doing homework. It would keep them more focused by eliminating such a large distraction from the equation. The teens in the first article had shown improvement with grades within the first month, including more effort towards school. Much of the time not using their electronic devices was filled up with time working on homework. This shows that with a lack of video games, kids will become more focused; this also shows that teens are being badly distracted and mentally shrinking the importance of doing schoolwork if they play video games too often.

The second article mentions a study that showed that kids 10-19 that frequently played video games spent about one third less time studying and doing homework than kids who play them at a regular basis. It is obvious that with this statistic that something must be done about the video game epidemic. The article mentioned strict limits that needed to be set; this could theoretically help, but knowing how good kids are at following rules and limits (sarcasm), I doubt any limits would help. Convincing them that the games are doing them no good and wasting their time, however, could have a much better impact.

            Overall, I have found that kids and teens are immensely hooked into video games and technology in general. Don’t get me wrong, I think technology is a great thing; however, with the affect it’s having on today’s youth, I think there has to be something done to use it in moderation. Teens today are becoming enveloped and dependent on games.

Article 1

2006.  Micki M. Caskey, Ph.D. “Why kids need to be bored: a case study of self-reflection and academic performance”. November 15, 2011. http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ804100

Article 2

M. Monzingo. “From kids to money, what to know now”. November 15, 2011. http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=67e0eb95-015b-4904-8d46-4d18c19522f2%40sessionmgr12&vid=1&hid=19&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ulh&AN=31276143

Preliminary links so far:

PDF article
http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ804100

Magazine article search

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=1a99b618-23e1-4db3-b7db-db47b04f50a9%40sessionmgr113&vid=8&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ulh&AN=31276143

There will be more soon.

Hypothesis:

Based off my research questions, I believe that in my research I will find that many teens are in favor of video games. They probably will not think they are addictive, and will spend more time on playing them than on homework or studying. They will likely have wasted so much time on video games that in order to get their homework done on time, they will have had to stay up late to do it. I believe this because video games hold an average teenager's attention and interest much more effectively than homework, and teens are shortsighted enough to want to play them instead of doing what they probably should.

Context:

I wanted to do research on this topic because I know many teens including myself that spend probably too much time playing video games and not enough time doing school work. I believe that it is a problem that should be blamed equally on video games and the users. I feel that teens naturally, or at least subconsciously, waste time, and that video games are what they waste it on.

Survey results:

	Yes	No	Unsure/other
Do you play video games?	90%	10%	0%
Do you think video games are a bad thing?	10%	60%	30%
On average, do you usually spend more time on video games than school?	0%	100%	0%
Would you consider the games you play addictive?	20%	60%	20%
Have you ever not done homework or had to stay up late to do homework due to time you spent playing video games?	40%	60%	0%
Do you believe in the phrase "Time is money"?	80%	10%	10%

 

Data analysis:

Some of my data was a bit unexpected, but I got some very good input on this. I see that most teens do play video games, do not think they're a bad thing, and have overspent time on them. The answer to the question of if they spend more time on video games than school was completely unexpected.

Follow up:

Looking back on my research, I can tell that because I handed out these surveys in school, many of the respondents, although knowing they are anonymous still put the most scholarly (although untrue) answer.

Conclusion:

Based on my research so far, it is obvious I will need to diversify my age group more than I did before with my survey, and stress the fact that the survey is anonymous. I found that most of my hypothesis was true; teens do spend a lot of time on video games without realizing that they are truly wasting their time.

~Questions~

1. Do teens today spend more time on video games than school work?
2. Should video games be considered a bad thing?
3. Why do teens commit to some games but not to doing schoolwork?
4. Are kids and teens being unwise with their time?
5. Does this affect both males and females?

A bit of background info on this

    Time before video games was very old-fashioned and active. Nowadays, doing school work is ignored; kids would rather play video games instead of spending time working on school. It was not always that way; before video games, kids would be outside riding their bikes or playing games. Teens today, including me, are now sitting in dark rooms with a controller or mouse in our hands, staring at a screen and pushing buttons. We leave our homework untouched in a bag or on a table somewhere, and do not take our education seriously enough. As they message each other or talk on their headsets, schoolwork is quickly forgotten. Even away from their games, they still talk about them all the time. I chose this topic because this issue is becoming more widespread everyday in our community.