This is an old, reworked essay I had to write for an online class I once took. I've added to it, a whole other paragraph, but as a reworked essay, this is hardly exhaustive. Were I to fully cite all the positive sides to gaming, I could probably take hours upon hours, but as is, I just sort of touch on a few of them, and didn't get to go really in depth with it.
I was supposed to cite peer reviewed articles in the essay, but found it intellectually dishonest to pick a side in what were supposed to be "factual" researched journal articles. For as many supposedly found some small link between aggression and violent games, others found no link, and some even found reduced aggression. If there was absolute concrete evidence that video games cause violence, then there shouldn't be such a broad range of contrasting findings. I just found it to be dishonest to say my paper was unbiased, when I could clearly pick whichever "factual" journal articles I wanted to support my views. As if scholars ever agree on anything.
So, instead of citing "research" (some of the methods chosen in that research were faulty, like going to game rankings to find "popular" games and then based on gamerankings, taking Prince of Persia, Madden, and World of Warcraft to Junior High students. Really? I know some JR high kids may have a WoW account, but how many are really likely to play it? This is scholarship?), I decided to wing it, and write most of what you are hearing here. I totally failed the paper, but at least my conscience is clean. I know most people would just do it their way, but I couldn't condone what felt like lying.
So here is my failed essay, remixed, if you will, for you to listen to.
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