Your Child's Brain On Technology: Video Games By Hank Pellissier

Video games can be useful to the public, teachers, writers, and developers use games in study, design, critique, and for fun. Today’s children learn at a very young age how to work a cell phone and or a tablet. Video games are introduced at an early age as trends move from attempting to incorporate games into the classroom, to developing games that focus on learning. Even snipers are put into virtual games in order to improve their skill.

According to the article “Could Playing Video Games Make You Smarter” by Michael Casey from CBS News, it states, "’In order to sharpen its prediction skills, our brains constantly build models, or 'templates,' of the world,’ she said. ‘The better the template, the better the performance. And now we know playing action video game actually fosters better templates’, (Casey,1)." This quote is saying that video games foster what we need to improve our prediction skills. Prediction is a part of our everyday life as it is the most common mental thing people use. If prediction skills are rising, then the brain is able to function better. According to Christopher Bergland’s article “Video Gaming Can Increase Brain Size and Connectivity”, it states,

For several decades, video games have been cast aside as detractors of student learning in the classroom. According to the research done by Mifsud, Vella, and Camilleri (2013), there is yet still an abundance of research that needs to be conducted, in order to determine the usefulness of video game application in schools. This research synthesis collects data on several different viewpoints and uses of video games in regards to complementing student engagement and learning. The research of James Gee (2005), hypothesized that good video games use good learning principles, of which there are a several. These learning principles include identity, interaction, production, risk-taking, challenge and consolidation, and system thinking. The specific descriptions of each principle will be dissected throughout this synthesis.

As an 18 year old, I did grow up in a transitional time of the technological era. From playing outside at the age of 6, to playing with my cousin’s portable gaming systems at the age of 8. At the age of 9, I read my very first chapter book—To Kill A

The individual is helpless against the larger powers in society. Power is defined as the ability to have control over someone. It is clearly true that an individual would be powerless against another person that has larger power over them. In certain cases, this can happen anywhere in today's society at workplace, school and even at home. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, it sets at a small southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, three years after the Great Depression. However the southern states of America was still going through slavery against the African-Americans.

The articles in track number two surrounded the topic of family influence on the development of an individual. All of the research studies revolved around how external sources effected the development of a person. Each study focused on a different age and aspect of an individual’s surroundings. Article one “Infant Development Outcomes: A Family Systems Perspective” focused on the early stages of infancy; birth to seventeen months, and the effects of the individual mental status of each parent and the relationship of the parents on the infants cognitive and physical development. The second article “Contextualizing video game play: The moderating effects of cumulative risk and parenting styles on the relations among video

In this world today kids can play video games on about anything such as computers, phones, Tvs, and game consoles. The most useful gaming device that is used today by children all over the world is the cell phone, children can access it easily without having to plug it up to a Tv or deal with any cords other than the charger. “Researchers gave 12-year-old gamers tests that asked them to draw, tell stories, ask questions and make predictions. All of the kids had high levels of creativity and curiosity”(Morin).

Technology has become second nature to our daily lives because we use it to think when we can’t, to help us from being bored, and to keep us in touch with the world. Hank Pellissier, in his article, “Your Child’s Brain on Technology: Video Games” quotes, “Take a deep breath. To relax, you scroll through Facebook and catch up on your email. Meekly, you join the other mesmerized zombies.” Clearly, we’re infected by these upcoming innovations and awaiting for fresh creativity. And speaking of zombies: my son plays Plants vs. Zombies, and as scary as that game may sound by its title, it distinctly lives up to its name. It is an entertaining strategic game that helps you think and act fast by using plants to destroy various skilled zombies. Video games are all fun and games, until someone gets hurt right? They can be detrimental for people who are wrongly influenced by it.

But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a tv parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes! This quote is relevant to how technology is changing the way how children think and act. Many people believe that technology is changing the way that kids act and think. There is three reasons why people think that technology is changing kids minds they are more than half of video games are violent, kids watch on average 4 ½ hours of television, and how many teenagers have access to a smartphone.

A lot of parents think that video games are bad while some scienstist think that they help kids.Well they are both right video games can be bad and good.In this you will read about both sides and then you can think abot your opinion on the screen time.If is bad or good or both or you don’t care.

It is bothersome to know that while students are making out in the hallways with minor penalties, a man was publicly humiliated for kissing his wife in public (Cox). Acts like this were punished commonly during the colonial times. In the early American colonies, religious authorities established punishments for actions they presumed to be crimes, but as time passed, laws evolved to protect people from cruel and unusual punishments. The colonial treatments were harsh, cruel and inhumane. These treatments, more commonly known as punishments, included public humiliation and the even death penalty. Juries would let the presumed criminal be released as innocent to prevent the person from the death penalty (Lynch). This resulted in a flawed and unjust government. As a response to the actions of the jurors criminal justice and laws evolved slowly over time; therefore, protecting people.

There are lots of studies in the impact of technology on children’s developing minds. Studies found that diagnoses of ADHD, autism, coordination disorder, developmental delays, unintelligible speech, learning difficulties, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders are associated with technology overuse, and are increasing at an alarming rate (Rowen). Technology is causing a harmful effect on some children these days and it could potentially be harming them in the long run. children who use too much technology may not have enough opportunities to use their imagination or to read and think deeply about the material (Deloatch). I am a single parent of a 3-year-old girl and I face the problem of technology overuse from my daughter on a daily basis. My daughter has had a mobile device since she was able to walk. She is completely and utterly obsessed with watching her cartoon shows. Every day after she gets home or wakes up in the morning, the first thing she asks for is her shows. She would always ask for our cell phones before she got to watch things on the big TV in the living room, and when we would tell her no she would throw a big tantrum about it. She has a very short attention span as well; it is hard for her to focus on one thing at a time. The technology keeps her up until almost 2 or 3 in the morning sometimes. If we try to turn it off, she still roams around the house and throw fits until she gets someone to turn it back on or falls asleep.

Current education systems are failing to give learning material to students in a way that they understand. Most students don’t care about their education because they think it’s boring and unnecessary. Students feel if the homework or lesson is too hard they won’t give it their best work. We should use video games as a new source of teaching. Students can benefit from video games because it’s a fun interactive way of learning, improves a student 's thinking ability, and increases participation.

In society, we have this set image of the Muslim community in our minds. This image is portrayed in several countries, not just America. Most people have this mindset that every Muslim they encounter is going to have a ticking time-bomb strapped to the front of their chest, just waiting to blow up some town. We mainly see this imagery of the Muslim people pictured in America via television; however, this illustration is also depicted in other parts of the world as well. In a British Newspaper, it is clearly stated that “Muslims are depicted in a systematically negative way” (Erik Bleich et. Al. 943). The worldly population allows certain images that are interpreted online, or in some sort of media, of one or two Muslims committing some sort of terrorist act to decipher how the entire Muslim nationality operates.

Education has and always been all about learning through textbooks and in-person lectures from school rather than using technologies to teach. For example, most schools located in the rural areas are still using the traditional way of teaching to deliver the materials to the students. In fact, most of the public high schools in the urban are not even aware of the existence of high-end technologies out there like the virtual reality, 3-Dimensional simulators, or even touchscreen devices. Students are taught and trained to use their basic skills to figure out a solution to a problem. However, if technologies included video games were parts of the teaching process and “teacher will have students create games to teach other students,” then “students are immersed in an environment they are accustomed to,” and “this establishes a potentially new form of performance assessment” (Annetta). Indeed, with this combination between education and video games, teachers are more likely to have their students highly participate in their works rather than have their students trying to finish their assignments because they were forced to do them. For example, students in middle school are more likely to have their attention on video games about the outer space from NASA’s website: spaceplace.nasa.gov, or to have themselves directly experience the 4-dimensional simulation of the pilot system of an aircraft rather than read the materials straight out from books. Another example of how video