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Can Video Games Really Be Beneficial to American Society?

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Submitted By Jaquim11
Words 1022
Pages 5
Jaqui Marec
Eng 180
Dr. Barclay
February 10, 2014

Can Video Games Really be Beneficial to American Society? In the article, “Just One More….: Angry Birds, Farmville, and Other Hyperaddictive Stupid Games”, the author Sam Anderson portrays how he feels about popular games throughout society. By providing numerous examples throughout the article, Anderson shows readers that there are deeper meanings behind the so-called video games we play that in turn interact with our psychological states of mind. He begins with the Game Boy that was created in Japan in 1989. He describes to the audience how the unit was made up and then describes the first game that was made for the unit, Tetris. Finally, he adds the purpose of the game and explains to readers why this game was considered addictive to anyone who played it. This in turn leads to the main purpose of the article, which was to convince readers that video games in fact can affect our psychological states of mind positively and even solve some of our real world problems. Anderson begins the article by talking about game-study scholars pointing out that games tend to reflect the era that they were created in. For example, he says that Monopoly was made in the 1930’s which was reflective of the great depression. Another example would be Twister created in the mid- 1960’s which was reflective of the “sexual revolution”. So how does Tetris pertain to this chain of game productions? Well, according to Anderson, Tetris was invented in a Soviet computer lab in 1984. He goes on to say that the enemy in the game is not an identifiable villain, but an invisible force that threatens to constantly overwhelm the gamer. By telling the reader this, he is showing that a game so simple and meaningless actually tells a deeper story than what is thought to be. After he hits his audience with a slice of reality, he then tells

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