Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABFS6p_eXw8

Steve Smart

Video gaming generally gets an unfair reputation as one of the worst forms of media with no positive benefits. It is described as aiding in “couch potato syndrome” which can be described as the inactivity of people due to media. It has also been blamed for the violent culture, the sexist culture, and even health problems. The existence of these problems have been around for much longer than the existence of gaming, and similarly the blame has been passed on to various cultures including: rock and roll, hip hop, movies, etc. These assertions are unjust and more importantly wrong.

My visual argument is a picture of a grandfather playing a video game with his grandson. It is captioned as “exhibit a: the harmful effects of gaming” The idea behind this is obviously sarcasm. Clearly the gaming is promoting a social bond between the younger child and his grandparent and they both seem to be enjoying themselves. The picture is a good example of a benefit from gaming that may never be mentioned. Cliché phrases like hand and eye coordination are tossed around as minuscule benefits compared to the overwhelming harmful effects. There are many more benefits of gaming available, including medical benefits, cognitive skill development, and social ones that are often dismissed.

The video I makes use of satire to develop a supporting argument similar to my own. It starts with an individual who has never played a video game because he has been convinced that they are harmful without ever examining it, and drawing his own conclusions. The man partakes in a session of gaming, and after losing is suddenly transformed into an off the wall man, who yells obscene language and by the end of the day has decided to kill himself. The point was to show how far fetched a lot of conclusions by outsiders of the gaming world draw onto the culture.