Technology is a man’s
best friend; it consumes today’s modern day society. Technology overwhelms us
it is everywhere; everyone is connected now thanks to the internet and social
media. The views on social media are very diverse. Professor Sherry Turkle, an
MIT professor believes that social media does a disfavor to today’s students as
they multitask around the clock to keep up with their social life’s that are constantly
brewing twenty four seven. Technology
consumption is not just with the younger generation it is also with the older
generations as they try to adapt to it. Its omnipotence spirals throughout
everyone and everything, it the fact is that we cannot avoid it so we tend to
embrace it. Schools, work places, home life, and social life, It is so easy to
become involved. Why does it appeal so much? I think a good answer to that
would be in gamers eyes. Gamers spend hours on hours and days on days consumed
within their own virtual world where they try and defeat dragons, witches,
zombies, and even militias. A good way to reach out to the youth of America
would be to involve a company, corporation, or organization and apply it to a
video game. That way today’s youth could tap into the producer’s resources with
a common interest. Is this dangerous? The children would see it as all fun and
games, there would be minimal consequences due to the fact that it was just a
game correct? Or would it begin to plant an idea that real life experiences,
such as today’s warfare was just a game that a kid can reset? War, military,
enlistment is not a game. It is life altering experiences that can affect a
person for the rest of his or her life and ultimately change it forever.
The Army Experience
Center in Philadelphia is located at the Franklin Mills Mall, it is a 14,500
square feet of video games. Ryan Hansen of Ignited Corporated who helped assist the Army create this
facility ( FIX) "The center is an attraction tool. There is no recruiting
mission here," Hansen said. "Here it is more about changing
perceptions" (Army News Service, Aug. 2008). This facility was created to
build real life Army experiences without the actual experience of war. The AEC
has simulators and virtual reality devices that can transport a 13 year old
child into a combat zone. With this in mind,
imagine how the 13 year old perceives a battle to the death. He or she will begin to have false
interpretations of a chaotic scenario. To the young teen it will be all fun;
shoot as many as you can and you never have to worry for your life or the others
around you. Although the Army claims that there are no actual “recruiters” in
the center, there are soldiers that walk around the center that are said to be
informants “ The Soldiers at the AEC
don't have quotas. They don't wear traditional Army uniforms, but rather black
Army polo shirts and khaki pants. They are from diverse backgrounds and have
unique stories to tell. At first glance they seem more like tour guides than
Army recruiters, and in a sense, they are. They guide center visitors through their
tour of the facility.” (Army News Service, Aug. 2008) Just because the soldiers
do not have quotas, who is to say that the Army does not influence these
teenagers while they are in the center? It would be very easy to lure a gamer
into talking about the army whilst playing a video game, and soon they could be
hooked on false perceptions. Once the door is open for the idea to weasel its
way into one of these kids mind it can soon consume them into a false vision of
glory that comes with the high price of victory. Bloody, battered, beaten down
soldier’s come to the end of a level and drag their dead to a corner and carry
on with killing the next group. With a video game there is no feelings, no
emotions, nothing close to the reality of warfare. The gamers don’t feel the
lifelong trauma and impact of dragging their brothers to a peaceful place. They
sit back in the comfortable seats able to return home, nothing like reality.
The concept of
recruiting whether it is implied or not is very dangerous when involved with
teenagers playing video games, the fact of the matter is that kids are just not
educated on what the actual consequences of enlisting into a military branch
are. Video games do not place an individual in experiences such as a
battlefield no matter how detailed the graphics are or how in depth the sounds
are. This makes teenagers that enter the gaming room see the military as just a
place to blow things up and not think about the lives that are being taken all
around them. The Things They Carried, a war novel by Tim O’Brien sums up a
young man’s life after he was affected by the Vietnam War “ I’d come to this
war a quiet, thoughtful sort of person, a college grad, Phi Beta Kappa and
summa cum laude, all the credentials, but after seven months in the bush I
realized that those high, civilized trappings had somehow been crushed under
the weight of the simple daily realities. I’d turned mean inside.”(
Tim O’Brien, The things they carried) Real soldier’s know that war is not a game,
however that is what technology through the military can bring about. To
justify, the military is enveloped within the heartstrings of America, it is
crucial to America and they do their duty every single minute of every day to
protect its citizens. However, a false understanding of warfare is what modern
day technology can do. Although the graphics can depict real scenes it will
never put a person in a soldiers place feeling what they feel, living their
lives. “ Fifty years' of research on violent television and movies has shown
that there are several negative effects of watching such fare (see Violence
in the Media - Psychologists Help Protect Children from Harmful Effects)…studies
by psychologists such as Douglas Gentile, PhD, and Craig Anderson, PhD,
indicate it is likely that violent video games may have even stronger effects
on children's aggression because (1) the games are highly engaging and
interactive, (2) the games reward violent behavior, and because (3) children
repeat these behaviors over and over as they play (Gentile & Anderson,
2003). Psychologists know that each of these help learning - active involvement
improves learning, rewards increase learning, and repeating something over and
over increases learning.” (APA, Effects of games)
Cite
Page
1.
Violent Video Games.
N.p.: APA, 2008. 1-2. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.apa.org/research/action/games.aspx>.
2.
McLeroy, Carrie. Army Expirence
Center. N.p.: www.armymil.com, 2008. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.army.mil/article/12072/army-experience-center-opens-in-philadelphia/>.
3.
The things they Carried.
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