Video Games Children

Video Games Children For kids, playing video games is one of the most important activities of their daily lives. Aside from doing their home works, most of these children spent time playing video games, and most probably spent more time playing as compared to the time spent in doing their homework. It is not only a trend for kids but for young adults and adults as well. From the time it was invented it has evolved into a more exciting and challenging media games of all time. Technological advancement has made it even more exciting for the players to play it and challenge themselves with tricks and clincher that comes with every game. The graphics and sound effects are fascinating making the experience real for the player especially those three dimensional computer machines. The ability of the player to control and maneuver the situation made it more even exciting. Violent video game is one type of game that has been the most out popular among players. But with the increasing number of people engaging into these computer games, a number of issues have been raised: negative and positive effects of these violent video games to children and young adults. This essay will take the position that violent video games do have negative effects on children. One of the negative effects of these violent video games is the physiologic changes that happen while they are playing. The excitement brought about by these violent video games stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, thereby creating significant changes in the individual’s heart rate, respiration and other involuntary responses in the body. It is exciting and stressful at the same time, the stressful events could affect gastric stimulation and frequent adrenaline rush, and this adrenaline rush is what makes these players to feel â€Å"good† and makes them want to do it repeatedly. Sympathetic nervous stimulation promotes vasoconstriction, and this vasoconstricting effect is not good as it alters cardiac mechanism. This in turn affects blood supply going to the central nervous system, causing dizziness, headache and nausea. According to Grossman DeGaetano, â€Å"the effects of violent video games on young adults’ arousal levels, hostile feelings, and aggressive thoughts have been measured. Results indicated that college students who had played violent virtual reality game had a higher heart rate, reported more dizziness and nausea, and exhibited more aggressive thoughts in a posttest than those who had played a nonviolent game† (70-71). Similarly, these violent computer games could have a direct effect on children’s behavior, since they are vulnerable especially on their formative stage. Not everybody who plays these violent video games have good foundation of moral values and an intact well being. There are those who are easily persuaded and affected by what they see in their environment, especially those children that lack parental guidance, as well as those individuals who have a low self-esteem. These vulnerable individuals are more prone to be affected by what they play and see on video games. There is a great possibility that these supposed to be virtual thing could be played in reality. As cited by Tompkins in an article in AllPsych Journal, The Academy of Pediatrics states, â€Å"More than one thousand scientific studies and reviews conclude that significant exposure to media violence increases the risk of aggressive behavior in certain children, desensitizes them to violence and makes them believe that the world is a ‘meaner and scarier’ place than it is.†Ã‚  According to Tompkins, if children become accustomed and believed that this violent behavior is acceptable and normal, it will be hard to change that belief as they grow older.  She also relates this to the study of domestic violence where in a person exposed to this violence tends to become either abused or be the abuser.  She further explains this by citing the Columbine incident as an example, where in the two students, who committed a violent act are video fanatics. Their exposure to vi olence was linked to their violent act since both of them came from a family with good parental guidance. Moreover, another negative effect of these violent video games to children is that it teaches the kids wrong values for reinforcement of behaviors. In psychology, there is a thing called â€Å"positive reinforcement†. It is a way of reinforcing a â€Å"good deed† or behavior by rewarding a child if the child has done a good job in school or if they behaved well. On the other hand, computer games bestow rewards on the player after killing or defeating their opponent. This process is totally the opposite of what id thought in â€Å"positive reinforcement†, the act of killing is rewarded and the purpose of â€Å"positive reinforcement† is defeated, which in turn could affects the child’s perception of what act or behavior must be rewarded. And this reward system in violent video games could affect the child’s behavior by imitating those seen and done in violent computer video games. As mentioned in the Gentile’s book, â€Å"reward increa ses imitation† (136). Furthermore, the experiences felt by the individual, especially in violent video games or even in media violence could have a significant effect on a child’s interpersonal interaction. Unconsciously, a child could internalize what is happening on what they see. This type of violence is emotionally stressful and could alter interpersonal interactions. â€Å"Participation in violent video games cast a negative cloud over the children’s views of interpersonal interactions. One research revealed that preschoolers most likely experienced fear and anxiety when they saw bloodied victims and watched expressions of emotional distress in connection with the media’s constant showing of the events of September 11th and their aftermath† (Cantor, 2002). These experiences that are internalized by children, unconsciously affects their behavior, and when they are placed in situations similar to what they have seen, they could become anxious and restless. On the contrary, there are also sectors that would oppose as to the negative effect of violent video games. According to Doug Lowenstein, who is the president of the Interactive Software Association, people who do not understand the industry are prone in distorting the effects of video games on children. In fact, Lowenstein claims, violent video games cannot be shown as result in increased aggression of the part of the children (as cited in Anderson Bushman, 2001). But how can we expect them to see the negative effect of these violent video games, well in fact what they mean is purely business. Likewise, Steven Johnson said: â€Å"The most debased forms of mass diversion-video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms-turn out to be nutritional after all† (9). It is nutritional in the sense that learning comes along while playing these violent video games, such as mastery and control and hand-eye coordination. This paper totally disagrees with this notion. There are more appropriate ways of learning these things, without jeopardizing the minds of these children of what is good and what is wrong. Example are art camps, indoor and outdoor activities that utilizes the body, where in physical, psychological and emotional aspects are given importance, which builds friendship and the values of sportsmanship, as well as maintaining a healthy active body, which computer games don’t give. Furthermore, computer video games promote isolation, aggressive behavior and a sedentary life style by sitting long hours in front of these computers. In conclusion, violent video game has a strong correlation in children’s aggressive behavior. Violent video game has a great impact in children’s behavioral, emotional, physiological, and psychological well being.  Parents are the first line of defense against the invasion into children’s lives. The decision to buy or not to buy violent video games is a true freedom and should be taken seriously. They should know the consequences of possible effects of such materials to their children.  Moreover, parents, caregivers and government sector should be more careful and protective to these vulnerable children.  Manufacturer should consider designing games that will teach children the good values, true manhood and moral courage; games that will provide fun, excitement, and will give visceral pleasure that is engaging and absorbing without the unnecessary violence.

Reigniting Your Passion for God Essay

The creative force behind all great art, all great drama, all great music, all great architecture and all great writing is passion. Nothing great is ever accomplished in life without passion. Nothing great is ever sustained in life without passion. Passion is what energizes life. Passion makes the impossible possible. Passion gives you a reason to get up in the morning and go and say, â€Å"I’m going to do something with my life today.† Without passion life becomes boring. It becomes monotonous. It becomes routine. It becomes dull. God created you with the emotions to have passion in your life and He wants you to live a passionate life for Him. Passion is what mobilizes armies into action. Passion is what causes explorers to boldly go where no man’s gone before. Passion is what causes scientists to spend late night hours trying to find the cure to a dreaded disease. Passion is what takes a good athlete and turns him or her into a great athlete where they’r e breaking records. You’ve got to have passion in your life. One day a man walks up to Jesus and he says, â€Å"Lord, what’s the most important thing in the Bible?† And you know what the Great Commandment is. We’ve talked about it many times. Jesus said, â€Å"I want you to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Nothing matters more than that. That’s the number one thing in life. I want you to love Me passionately.† Nothing else matters in life if you don’t love God with passion. God doesn’t want you to love Him half-heartedly. He wants you to love Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. I love the paraphrase of that verse, Mark 11:30, from The Message â€Å"Jesus said, ’Love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.† Circle the word â€Å"passion†. That word, in Greek, is the word â€Å"heart.† God is saying I want you to put some muscle into it, put some energy, put some emotion into your relationship with Me. Don’t be a wimp about your relationship with Me. Don’t be namby-pamby. Don’t be half-hearted. Give it all you’ve got. Jesus is saying, â€Å"If you’re going to follow Me, you’ve got to go it with passion. You’ve got to give it some oomph, some spark, some zip, some enthusiasm, some zest. In other words I want you to live your life with me passionately.† In fact, this truth is all through the Bible. The Bible tells us that we’re to seek God passionately. We’re to love God passionately. The Bible says that we’re to serve and obey God passionately. We’re to trust God passionately. Then as if you didn’t get the message, in Colossians 3:23 He says â€Å"Whatever you do, do it with all of your heart as unto the Lord and not unto men.† He says I want you to do everything passionately when it comes to loving Me, serving Me, living for Me. Here’s the amazing thing. In America it’s ok to be passionate about anything except God. That is not politically correct — to be passionate about God. I can be passionate about movies. I can be passionate about sports. I can be passionate about politics. I can be passionate about fashions and clothes. I can be passionate about restaurants. But I cannot be passionate about God. That’s a no-no. I typed in the phrase â€Å"a passion for†¦Ã¢â‚¬  into Amazon.com and found a couple hundred books with that title. There’s a book call A Passion for Birds, A Passion for Books, A Passion for Cactus, A Passion for Chocolate (that’s understandable), A Passion for Fashion, †¦ for Fishing†¦ for Flying, †¦ for Gardening, †¦ Golf, Hunting. There’s even a book called A Passion For Mushrooms. A Passion for Needlepoint, Pasta, Ponies. There’s a book called, A Passion for Potatoes, for Roses, for Shoes. There’s even a book called A Passion for Steam. I can’t figure out what that one’s all about! I don’t know why you’d get passionate about steam. But in our culture today it’s ok to be passionate about anything except your religion, except your faith, except your relationship with God. I can go to a concert, or a political rally or a baseball game and I can shout my head off. I can get excited. I can get hoarse from yelling so loud. When my team loses I could cry. Nobody thinks that’s a big deal. When my team wins I can jump up and dance around and wave my hands in the air. If I do that at a game people go, â€Å"He’s a real fan!† But if I do that in church people say, â€Å"He’s a fanatic! He’s a nut case.† You don’t want to get too emotional about your faith. Its ok about anything else but not that. Romans 12:1 â€Å"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor.† Keep the fires going in your life. Circle the word â€Å"keep.† Notice, it’s not automatic. It’s a choice. It’s a discipline. It’s something you must maintain. You are not by nature passionate about God. It’s something that you must choose to do. You get distracted and everything in life conspires to keep you from being passionate about God. So He says keep your passion going. Keep the fires going. It’s a discipline. It’s not just automatic. This kind of thing — being passionate about God has nothing to do with either your personality or your age. Our churches are filled with hundreds if not thousands of senior believers who have walked with God a long, long time and are still passionate. But everything in life conspires to keep you from being passionate. And it dissipates your energy. When you first become a believer and you really understand what a good deal you’ve got you get excited about it, â€Å"This is quite a big deal! All my sins were forgiven. I now have a purpose for living, and I now have a future home in heaven. What a deal! And you get excited about that when you give your life to Christ and you’re pretty passionate. But as time goes by you begin to lose your steam. You begin to lose your zip, your zest, your enthusiasm. What happened? Why does that happen? That’s what we’re going to look at today. As we go through God’s word we’re going to look at seven passion killers, things that rob the joy out of your life. I thought this would be a very appropriate message, right in the middle of winter, when nobody feels very passionate about much of anything. You want the warmth of summer back. So this morning we’re going to look at these passion killers together. I want you to use it as a checklist. Because God says, I want you to love Me with all of your heart.

London – Stan Marshal

The city of Lonetown, now in its 21st century, is one of the most popular, urbanised capitals of the world. It is a place of opportunity, commotion and great excitement, bringing the public together from all four corners of the world. The towering landscape and the everlasting history not only anthropomorphises the exciting and unique British quality of life but also the many doubts that are brought about by such a popular city overall. The barriers that block such this metropolis from the exceptional and idealistic world that we exceptionally want to live in, strangely enough relegate Lonetown to the abysmal and diabolical mess that many people could say was beyond the bounds of possibility. Every insignificant feature that we see in daily British society has some kind of improbable flaw in it, for example; the car that an ordinary person drives brings a source of freedom, fun and, worst of all, road tax. It would be such a disappointment to ruin such an enormously popular city like Lonetown through problems that appear from certain individuals from the depths in society. Nevertheless, we could say that Lonetown is climbing the stairway that leads to the turbulent, hellish point in civilisation rather than the divine utopian society that we all long for, where the devil himself is omnipresent and wicked. What is strange is that few people perceive, let alone care. The drinking, drugs and explicit language set bad examples to the new and forthcoming generations of citizens, yet this is so widespread that society altogether is worsening. Stan Marshal and Louise Clark are two characteristic examples of different people with separate philosophies, who expose the detrimental aspects of society in a battle between what is right and what is wrong. Stan Marshal, a person at the peak of his career and preparing for his spectacular fifth concert. The fans loved him but their parents ostracised him. It was not surprising since he had the looks and the style to be the talented hip-hop rap singer that he is. The teenagers loved his down-to-earth attitude of drinking and drugs, and the shocking language in his songs. On the other hand, Louise Clark, an upbeat single mother, was forced to take her son to the concert promised to be incredible and breathtaking. She was obviously against this and the influence this particular rap singer had on her children. After all, a single mother taking care of three children was a strenuous job and she had passed the last few years without her husband by her side. Everyday was like dija-vu, waking up at six o'clock in the morning and spending the day vacuuming, washing, cleaning and feeding her children. Living in the dilapidated side of Lonetown, she had to handle everything there was- alcohol, drugs abuse and unemployment. Her only hope and motivation now was for her children not to grow up to be the failure that she now is, however this seemed rather bleak considering her eldest child, Michael, seemed obsessed and somewhat manipulated by Stan and his hip-hop music. It is astonishing what a little public acclaim can do. Stan's uprising popularity was not only because of his distinct music to the younger generation but also his momentous yet obscene lifestyle. His consistent intake of alcoholic drinks, smoking cannabis and injecting heroin was not really surprising. It was by this process that made him into such an unusual person, which accordingly made him attract attention easily. Some would say he lived life on the edge, taking extraordinary risks quite recently and eventually ending up in the middle of a clash between two gangs. Parents believed that wherever he walked, he carried trouble along with him, which is why they tried to prevent their children from coming into contact with him in any way. However, every crime that a teenager does at some point in their life is influenced either by peer pressure or by a person similar to Stan's character. This is the reason why Louise felt the need to take a stand. Not only was she apprehensive by the fact that her son was listening to his music, but also the way it may affect her two daughters- Lisa and Rachael and whether they would be manipulated by Stan's crude temperament. With the concert finished, Stan's follower waited for him to leave. They were so devoted to his brilliance in hip-hop music that they were inclined to wait a day if they needed to for his autograph. Michael and his mother were amongst the multitude of people, who fortunately had a clear view of the Limousine and the door Stan was supposed to depart from. Louise was astonished to notice that she was probably the only parent to come to the concert, and worst of all she did not like it. It started with the foul words, as he appeared on the stage with his trademark item- the chainsaw. It ended yet again with the offensive words and to top it all off, some drinking and drugs. Louise wanted to carry Michael away as quickly as she could straight from the moment Stan's obnoxious figure appeared on the stage. Nonetheless she couldn't firstly, because it was Michael's birthday and secondly, because she was interested in the impact Stan made on these pitiful teenagers. Finally, twenty minutes or so after the concert, Stan appeared, cameras flashed and girls screamed. It was quite a spectacle, however it took little time for Stan to walk to his car without somehow caring about the people who surrounded him. He was in the music business for his image, popularity and money and cared little about the assembly of people surrounding him. This is why Louise really felt the need to do something and to make at least one ignorant child in the swarm aware of the kind of character Stan was. She felt the urge of inflicting some kind of damage to his dim-witted character, yet it seemed unwise considering he carried a chainsaw with him. At least she tried to make herself prominent in the mass crowd. Although there were policemen in the way of both Stan and Louise from confronting each other, they still exchanged looks, both realising that they were the opposition's antagonist. Stan made little response in the presence of Louise, however he had a feeling of scepticism and doubt. Louise, on the other hand, felt even more displeasure by looking at his face. She expected a grin from him, almost a smirk of triumph because of his ascendancy and his organisation of loyal fans. She felt the need to retaliate with vengeance or retribution because the way he, like other artists, made a disgrace of society and musical culture overall. So what was her course of action now- to bring to an end his vulgar music and his influence to the teenagers or to leave him with his mass popularity. The answer was easy: to overthrow Stan. To diminish his popularity. To topple his image.

Case Analysis Izmir National University - 778 Words

Case Analysis â€Å"Izmir National University† The case explains the process of introduction of INU, a Turkish University established in 2000. It aimed to assist the growth and development of areas related to economy, engineering, science, etc in Europe. Five years prior its opening, It reached 9300 students and projected to start off a new Business School. However, it faced several issues mainly: a shortage on faculty members (only 26 professors), inefficient screening selection processes and inconsistent administrative responsibilities. The new department Dean faced several issues towards guaranteeing the adequate development of this department upon his arriving and thus decided to brainstorm with its teaching staff. Perhaps the†¦show more content†¦What role would you recommend the Dean play in this process? The Dean should take into consideration 4 aspects in the management of the Business School. First, an extensive revision and modification of the main goals and curriculum must be executed. Constructing a SWOT analysis may help to understand the current department’s needs and challenges. The Business Department should be seen as a company which produces a unique product â€Å"students†, where the manufacturers â€Å"teachers† play an important role with its administrations and management (Dean/ department administrative). Second, the main target to be reach in the next 5 years should be decided. The business school must decide whether expansion (more enrollments) or quality of education should be the image of the school which will guarantee success in the future. Third, a team oriented philosophy must be carried out, delegating responsibilities at all times. The creation of a committee of professors should ensure the continued success of students, curriculum improvement and research. This will allow the Dean to foresee more activities for the department (exchange programs for students, partnership with other universities, funding expansion, etc) and also to be able to cope with his agenda. Finally, more ways of creating value for the department (perceived benefits/cost) should be a keyword. Perhaps the best way is to analyze the Business Department as a