Weekly Writing 5

The different values or audiences the authors seem to appeal to vary; the first author’s values are obviously directed towards the benefits video games have on player and appear to strategically respond to negative posits towards the issue. In this sense, it seems that he is speaking to opponents of video games, especially in his second paragraph where he says, “It is easy to demonize something you know nothing about.” He also tries to be credible with his argument by using the Karmapa Lama as a video game icon, telling his audience you don’t have to take his word for it, but just look at the facts. The author evaluates the object in terms of what the player actually gains from it, yet doesn’t really look at any of the negative effects that other research has shown to have had on gamers. The only thing he does say about the other side of the issue is that video games should NOT be to blame for school shootings and adolescent aggression. Towards the end of his essay, the author calls video games “tools.” While I think he could have been on to something here, he instead takes it very literally and compares them to actual tools, such as a hammer or drill. The point he was trying to make was that video games are tools we use for our mind, or to release aggression. But his comparisons are unclear.

The second author’s values center around the health of a player. They outline potential effects that video games can have on people, but don’t necessarily show any factual or specific cases for their argument. Although I feel I have seen some of the effects they pointed out first-hand, I am unsure if what I am seeing is actually the case, or if its as the first author puts it, “something I know nothing about.” One thing that was interesting was how these authors took the same argument that the first one had made, and turned it around-- the suggestion that rehearsing actions in the mind causes the body to become adept to applying and demonstrating them in real life was a good skill for author 1, but the second author argued that this repetition is the key to instilling aggression on children. It seems that it would have to depend on the game.