Annotated Bibliography

Jared Pugh

Eliot Coyle

English 130W

April 16th, 2020

First three articles are from the CSU library.

Kasumovic, Michael M.; Blake, Khandis; Dixson, Barnaby J.; Denson, Thomas F.

“Why do people play violent video games? Demographic, status-related, and mating-related correlates in men and women” ScienceDirect Journals (2015) Web. 16 April 2020.

Kasumovic, Blake, Dixson, and Denson are professors at various teaching institutes. They have written several papers on the effects of video games separately and while collaborating with other scholars. 

The authors discuss the possible negative and positive impacts of violent video games on both men and women. The article talks about the case study the authors conducted on 1000 men and a 1000 women. After they state their research and what they found, they go into what this means. From the research they gathered several factors, one being that people who played more violent video games felt that playing them enhanced their sexual attractiveness. These were one of the many bizarre results that were concluded from the study.

I plan to use the results of this paper to show why people play video games while simultaneously attempting to disprove the notion that video games cause violent behaviour. In regards to the disproving, I’ll reference the attraction part of the research in regards to why people play violent video games. I’ll also rely on the stress relieving dta that was found throughout the participants.

Sun, Chuen-Tsai; Ye, Shu-Hao; Wang, Yu-Ju. “Effects of commercial video games on cognitive elaboration of physical concepts” ScienceDirect Journals (2015) Web. 16 April 2020.

Sun, Ye, and Wang  wrote a paper that discussed using video games as a teaching method instead of the usual lecture method based way of teaching. They discussed what games they would use and for what purpose those games would have in regards to what subject they would teach. They discussed and gave a few examples, like angry birds’ space in regards to a lesson in circular motion or possibly gravitational forces. They also went  into detail on games that were specifically programmed to teach kids subjects like math and english.

When using this paper for my own paper, I would heavily rely on the concept they are talking about in regards to video games being able to teach kids. This would be used to help dissuade the argument towards video games being the cause of violent acts in America. I would constantly rely on the fact that if video games were used to help teachers teach kids then is the problem truly reliant on the video game itself.

Graham, Jeffrey. “Video games: parents’ perceptions, role of social media and effects on behavior” New York : Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 2014 Web. 16 April 2020.

Graham is a writer for the Nova Science Publishers. In his article, he discusses how video games aren’t exactly “uniform” in the lessons they teach their players. He goes on to discuss that violent video games generally have the characters commit violent acts in order to protect people from getting killed or worse. He gives examples from fighting monsters in Resident Evil or terrorists in Call of Duty.  He then dives into try to answer questions about video games’ effects on people, including the question “whether games can only teach antisocial lessons.”

I plan to use the answers and predictions Graham made about the question when making my claim in my paper. Focusing on the possibility that video games don’t teach people antisocial traits as much as some people claim they do is the entire purpose of my paper. By focusing on his research, I should be able to firmly prove the point I am try to make in my paper while simultaneously disproving those with counter arguments to my claim.

Everly Jr., George; Bienvenu, Joseph. “Profiling” School Shooters, Can we tell who will be the next to kill?” Psychology Today (March 29th, 2018) Web. 16 April 2020.

Everly Jr. wrote an article for Psychology Today that goes into the possible tells of a potential school shooter. He goes into detail on what can be observed from a potential shooter and what each of these signs might mean. Like for example, on how they would vent to social media or some other form of publicly showing their distress before a violent act. These tips are taken from several case studies over the years after tragedies.

When using this research I will go into how this evidence might correlate into video games. My goal is to emphasize how these signs have little to no correspondence to video games at all. In the end, I hope to create a convincing counter argument against the debate of video games being a key factor for these tragedies.

Goldbeck, Lauren;  Pew, Alex. “Violent Video Games and Aggression” National Center for Health Research (No date of published) Web. 16 April 2020.

Pew and Goldbeck discuss the possibility that violent video games cause violent tendencies in the people that play them. They specifically focus on aggression in people that play violent video games, and how that emotional response is increased by playing aggressive video games. It is to be noted that the evidence to prove these claims is lacking in terms of actual content or proof to support these claims. 

When writing my paper, I will focus on the lack of evidence that this article has to support its claims. This focus on lack of content is powerful considering it is from the National Center for Health Research. By using a combination, if it’s actually a thing, counter ethos and logos, I will attempt to debunk the entire debate against video games that is being made in this article. I of course will reference the fact that the article concludes that video games are not the only factor in aggression.