Post 1:
What sort of computer games do you find most engaging? Why? What does it say about you? Why does computer game violence, mostly, not affect the players? Is there a level at which it does effect changes in people?
I'm a RPG, or "Role Playing Game", girl through and through. Baldurs Gate 2 and Dragon Age come to mind. These are fantasy type RPGs which all have the origin of Dungeons and Dragons. I think this reflects my love of journeys, of the long route to the goal. In these games you interact with hundreds of characters throughout to try and figure out where to go next, get quests and open up alternative story lines. It's mainly about the story, which has as much thought put into it as the game play.
Personally I have never treated video and computer game violence with as much gravity as concerned adults have since they emerged. I think the violence doesn't affect players in general because of the fantasy quality, most games make the violence so far from realistic that you don't link it to reality at all, or they make it comical and thus detract from the seriousness. Although I can see why people are concerned, I treat it as I would any medium that contains violence - if you're so worried, then don't allow your children to watch/play the show or game.
I found a journal article from a few years back where psychologists at St. Leo University in the U.S found after 20 years of studies that violent games can trigger hostile behaviour in kids (Harrar 2006, p. 46). Which makes fears even more justified. Another article (Hoerrner M & K 2006 p. 12) quotes a consultant named Lt. Cl. Dave Grossman who wrote a book "Stop Teaching our Kids to Kill". Grossman believes first person shooters are like military instructional videos to improve a soldiers shooting precision. A horrible example of this communicating to real life is when a 14-yr-old boy open fired on a church prayer group in Paducah, Kentucky, US and landed eight out of eight shots, fired at eight different people. Most of them were head shots. He had never used a gun before, but the weapon he used was the same as the one used in the game.
This evidence is shocking to say the least, but I must point out in the second example that America has gun laws which make acquiring a gun easy and quick, bullets are available in Wall-Mart! I think if you looked up cases of teen violence caused by video games in Australia, you would find few, if any. In relation to the last question, at what level does it effect a change? - I think this is hard to pin down. It is always dependent on the individual. A teen might already display aggressive tendencies, and these games encourage them to act out these tendencies. It might be that if played from a very young age, with no adult pointing out the difference between the virtual reality and the physical reality, a young mind might think it logical to act this way, and commit acts of violence outside the game.
It's a contentious topic to say the least, and to be conclusive would require hours and hours of research and case study comparison.
Bibliography
Harrar, S 2006, 'Video Game Violence', Prevention, vol. 58, no. 2, p.46, viewed 27th August 2011 via ProQuest Central
Hoerrner, M Hoerrner, K 2006, 'Video Game Violence', Prevention, vol. 15 no. 1, pp.12-14, viewed 27th August 2011 via ProQuest Central.
I'm a RPG, or "Role Playing Game", girl through and through. Baldurs Gate 2 and Dragon Age come to mind. These are fantasy type RPGs which all have the origin of Dungeons and Dragons. I think this reflects my love of journeys, of the long route to the goal. In these games you interact with hundreds of characters throughout to try and figure out where to go next, get quests and open up alternative story lines. It's mainly about the story, which has as much thought put into it as the game play.
Personally I have never treated video and computer game violence with as much gravity as concerned adults have since they emerged. I think the violence doesn't affect players in general because of the fantasy quality, most games make the violence so far from realistic that you don't link it to reality at all, or they make it comical and thus detract from the seriousness. Although I can see why people are concerned, I treat it as I would any medium that contains violence - if you're so worried, then don't allow your children to watch/play the show or game.
I found a journal article from a few years back where psychologists at St. Leo University in the U.S found after 20 years of studies that violent games can trigger hostile behaviour in kids (Harrar 2006, p. 46). Which makes fears even more justified. Another article (Hoerrner M & K 2006 p. 12) quotes a consultant named Lt. Cl. Dave Grossman who wrote a book "Stop Teaching our Kids to Kill". Grossman believes first person shooters are like military instructional videos to improve a soldiers shooting precision. A horrible example of this communicating to real life is when a 14-yr-old boy open fired on a church prayer group in Paducah, Kentucky, US and landed eight out of eight shots, fired at eight different people. Most of them were head shots. He had never used a gun before, but the weapon he used was the same as the one used in the game.
This evidence is shocking to say the least, but I must point out in the second example that America has gun laws which make acquiring a gun easy and quick, bullets are available in Wall-Mart! I think if you looked up cases of teen violence caused by video games in Australia, you would find few, if any. In relation to the last question, at what level does it effect a change? - I think this is hard to pin down. It is always dependent on the individual. A teen might already display aggressive tendencies, and these games encourage them to act out these tendencies. It might be that if played from a very young age, with no adult pointing out the difference between the virtual reality and the physical reality, a young mind might think it logical to act this way, and commit acts of violence outside the game.
It's a contentious topic to say the least, and to be conclusive would require hours and hours of research and case study comparison.
Bibliography
Harrar, S 2006, 'Video Game Violence', Prevention, vol. 58, no. 2, p.46, viewed 27th August 2011 via ProQuest Central
Hoerrner, M Hoerrner, K 2006, 'Video Game Violence', Prevention, vol. 15 no. 1, pp.12-14, viewed 27th August 2011 via ProQuest Central.
Post 2:
In early 2009 Facebook revised their terms of service which caused a major backlash from users. Originally in the terms a clause states that once your account is deactivated you can still delete files and photos you uploaded. On February 4th this clause disappeared, causing major concern that Facebook could "retain control of user's data in perpetuity" (Greek 2009) and thus use this data in marketing and advertising.
Mark Zuckerburg was forced to backtrack, and when you view the 2nd point in the Terms page today is states that their "IP license ends when you delete your IP content or your account, unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it." (Facebook 2010) The types of content allowed on FB is virtually endless, except of course anything that infringes on copyright or intellectual property laws, and violates another person's rights. In the 3rd point under Safety it claims "You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission." I want to point out the without our permission part, which pretty much states that our information can be 'harvested' if given the go ahead? Are marketing companies doing this for a large whack of money?
In terms of content, they claim at the very beginning that we own all of our content and information posted on Facebook, but in terms of photos and videos, I think this clause sums it up: "[...]you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). " (Facebook 2010). They own your photos and videos as long as you're account is activated.
Guarantees of privacy are all up to the user. There are options to keep your profile private or public (even to the point where it's "Friends" or "Friends of Friends"), and if you don't want the metadata of your photos stored, then you have to remove it. You can alter who sees what in the Privacy Settings in your 'Account' tab.
Bibliography
Greek, D 2009, 'Facebook terms under scrutiny', Computer Act!ve, March 5th, viewed 27th August 2010 via ProQuest Central.
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