Balancing Time Between Playing Video Games & Academic Performance

Balancing Time between Playing Video Games and Academic Performance, An Argumentative Research Paper -Name- -Professor- -University- Date Chapter I Introduction Rationale The advancement of technology we are currently experiencing in this era has brought us to discoveries and inventions of things that our lives easier compared to the previous years. In line with these advancements, developers have thought of creating things that are indeed innovating and quite similar to what we see and what we experience in reality. Truth iswe can no longer control the rapid developments and changes that technological advancement has already brought us. In fact, we can no longer deny that at some points in our lives it has actually been abused. In connection with what has been stated above, this argumentative research paper was initiated to figure out those possible gray areas with this kind of development. It is an undeniable fact that technological advancements also give negative impact to one person’s personal growth and maturity. We can observe it to sudden changes of personality and behavior of an individual. In addition to what has been stated, factors like being addicted and beinghooked with these advancements can prove it. For instance, observe how students behave and how they act to situations, most of the times they act depending on what they see on social networking sites which some studies have already proven. In reality, students usually follow those trends which are being set as social standards online. Relatively, video games have been so familiar with university students. It has been believed that video games make university students feel that they are part or they are included in this new generation. More so, they (university students) believed as well that video games help them free themselves from any stress they have. There are those who claim that video games hinder university students from accomplishing their due requirements or projects on time, which shall be explained further later on the latter part of this paper. Because of this, there are now issues arising with regards to how video games greatly influence university students’ academic performance in a negative way. Thus, this paper will try to figure out the different ways on how university student may balance their time in playing video games and acing their grades for better academic performance. * Importance of the Research The importance of this argumentative research paper is to clearly state the relation of playing video games and academic performance of university students. Correspondingly, this research paper shall be able to give tangible ways to balance the time wisely in playing video games and in having an astounding academic performance. These are the objectives used to serve as guides in fulfilling the needs of the paper: 1 To be able to identify if video games are really affecting academic performance; 2 To be able to compare the academic performance of those university students who plays video game to those who are not; 3 To be able to derive or give ways how to properly balance the time playing video games and academic performance; 4 To be able to give a stand to the ongoing discussion regarding the relations of video games and academic performance. * Statement of the Problem The objective of this argumentative research is to seek for the answers to the following questions: 1 How can video games affect university students both in normal life and academic? 2 Why can video games influence university students? 3 What are the advantages and disadvantages of video games? 4 How can university balance their time between playing video games and focusing on their academic performance? * Review of Related Literature Video Games According to the study of Spil Games, a big company of producing and developing video games, there are total of 1.2 billion people who are playing video games (Taylor Soper, Study:1.2 billion people are playing games worldwide; 700M of them are online, geekwire.com). The first video game released in the history is the Computer Space by Nutting Associates and developed by Nolan Bushnell on 1971 (Jeff Tyson, How Video Game System Works, electronics.howstuffworks.com), initially, video games are being ran in a minicomputer with simple visual effects. To date, video games can be ran in different computers as long as it has the required amount of storage and is capable of running the program. In addition, the visual effects were indeed improved. Currently, video games have more realistic visual effects with matching sound effects. As can be seen, game developers do not stop making video games better. In actuality, there are more innovations they are planning to do. These developments on video games have given a better experience to every person who is using it which is just right for spending spare time and for releasing any stress. However, some gamers abuse it to the extent that they are being addicted to it. As per the data collected by Douglas A. Gentile, PH. D., on average, video games players consume 20 hours per week, and that, 72 percent of American households play video games (Alarming Video Game Addiction Statistics, addictions.com). This is not a good indication of proper usage of video games for leisure purposes since according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average, 36.05 hours are being spent with leisure time (Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey Summary, bls.gov), this includes; watching television, socializing, exercising, playing video games, playing sports and many more. On the other hand, studies have shown that there are three major psychological reasons why certain people plays video games; first, the psychological need for competence, every person loves to have the feel of being superior. In this case, individuals want to take control over certain situations to show the skills they have; second, the psychological need of autonomy, in other terms autonomy means independence. Any person wants to make their decisions by themselves to prove their worth. Relating it to the experience of playing video games, the moment a player starts to play, the fate of the game is on his hands; third, the psychological need of relatedness. This psychological need simply talks about an individual wanted to be part of the trend that everyone is experiencing. Academic Performance Based on the research of Pew Research Center, 65 percent of college or university students play video games (MarishaHivner, Video game culture: College students’ obsession with gaming, students.com.miami.edu). Primarily, university students say that they play video games for the sake of making friends and connecting with their friends who are far from their geographical locations. This is then being referred to as the social benefit they get in playing video games. Simply, university students just want to spend their free time from hectic schedules and deadly requirements with the people they are comfortable with. However, there are instances where even if they have schedules at school they still continue playing video games which leads their schedule to be compromised and for their grades be failed. This kind of unexpected scenario is uncontrollable specially that university students have the ability of manipulating their time and most university students are not with their parents. In line with this, the study of Jancee Wright have shown that those university students who have said that they play video games have significantly lower Grade Point Average (GPA) compared to those who said no (Jancee Wright, The effects of video games on academic performance, scholar.utc.edu). There could be a lot of factors that can affect a certain university student’s performance. One is video game addiction, it has been proven that video games affect the academic performance of university students (Onyemaka, et. al, “”I failed because I was Playing Video Games”: An Examination of Undergraduate Males Videogame Addiction and Academic performance, eprints.covernantuniversity.edu.org.ng). Because of video game addiction, university students tend to unconsciously postpone their due requirements and worst their study periods that lead them to submit nothing and to get low score during examinations. Time Management In actuality, there is no problem if a certain university student decides to play video games as long as he knows how to balance his time. Proper time management has been a problem with university student...