Our brain is like a core of our body that basically runs all the functions in our body. In the whole human being life, brain observes the surrounding, retrieve the information and store it into the brain. It is a never-ending process until the life spam of the body ends. Each person’s brain reacts differently in situations even if they go through the same event. This is because their senses focus on different things in the same event. Every person’s brain reacts differently because of its plasticity due to the experience and memories throughout the life. Almost everything around you shape up your brain especially what you pay attention to or focus on. In today’s society the first person shooting games are famous and almost every teenager plays the first person shooting games. The first-person shooting games are actually the games that have first person’s point of view. In other words the screen display is nearly same as your eyes see in real life. It has more realistic features that attract an individual’s brain. Due to its realism, it has negative impact on human brain as well the violent first-person shooting games lead to harmful acts, causes addiction and affects your health. The new technology like Cyberith Virtualizer and Oculus Rift made these games more realistic and have even more negative impact on the brain.

Few examples of first person shooting games

Due to the violent first person shooting games many tragedies happened that were caused by first person violent games. According to Bilton who wrote article “Gaming industry shows little patience for worries about realistic violence; Diruptions”, “researchers believe that the constant flood of violent images takes away a child’s ability to feel empathy for people who have been through similar situation in real life” (Bilton2). It indicates that the violent first person shooting games have negative impact on brain that could take away a child ability to feel empathy for others. In other words it could make children more violent and can cause problems like shootings and attempt to harm other people. Furthermore Bilton explained, “after the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut, when it becomes clear that Adam Lanza was a fan of first-person shooters, including the popular military game Call of Duty” (Bilton2). The violent first person shooting games lead to harmful acts just as shooting incident in Sandy Hooks that was cause by a first-person shooter fan Adam Lanza and it lead to many injuries and deaths. In addition, “The mass shootings in recent years in Newtown, Conn. and Aurora, Colo., were both committed by young men who had regularly played first-person shooters” (Bilton1). The first-person shooting games effect a person’s brain that change the thinking of a person and lead to violence that took away many people’s lives. Moreover Deanworth who wrote article “Brain-Changing Games” explained about the effects of games on brain, “of more concern are studies across thousands of gamers indicating that regularly exposure to violent video games accounts for 1 to 4 percent of the many possible triggers for aggression” (Denworth5). There are percentages of people that get negatively affected by the first-person shooting games and they get aggressive. It proves that violent first-person shooting games have negative effects on person brain and lead to harmful acts.

The first-person shooting games cause addiction and your body gets affected that leads to problem in real life. According to my friend Bilal Shadizai, “I love to play games. Especially the first-person shooting games like Call of Duty, Modern Warfare and Battlefield 4. Sometimes I don’t study because of the game that never let me to leave it until I get tired”(Shadizai par5). This shows that first-person shooting games have factors that keep your attention towards the game and you never want to leave it until you get tired or something important comes up. In addition, “playing video games might even ameliorate certain visual disorders” (Denwoth2). It illustrates that first person shooting games require focus of sight and if you play it more than average time it effects your vision which could lead to certain types of visual disorders. My mother Mah Jabeen who is 52 years old explained her perspective about the first person shooting games, “ I personally never get interested in games and I don’t like these violent games because it spoils kids and they play games instead of studying” (Jabeen par7). In old times there were no digital games that had attracted so much attention and realism comparing to modern games. It cause addictions and person keep himself or herself busy in games and ignore things that are needed to be done to progress in life. The basic idea is first person shooting games cause addiction and effects person’s vision and also make them lazy.

The technology is developing really fast in the present age. There are many technologies that run first person shooting games but now they have created new virtual reality technology that has made these games more realistic which makes a person feels that he or she is in the game. However, it can have many negative impacts on the brain. According to Weger who did research on effects on virtual reality technology gaming on brain, “the point of view we adopt during video gaming thus appears to have implications that extend beyond the virtual environment, into real life”(Weger4). This points out that when we use virtual reality technology for gaming we adapt our surroundings in the game and turn it in to real life, which causes a person to react to the situations in games that seems to be real in his or her perspective. In some cases, it causes stroke. In addition “aggressive video gaming has been shown to lead to dehumanization and more disengagement”(Weger1). This tells that playing violent games cause people to act aggressive and virtual reality gears like that make it much more effective. The new virtual reality technology making games more realistic but it has negative impact on brain because it makes person brain to adapt the game environment and replace it to the real environment.

Some might say first person shooting games improve your visual and decision making skills. The video game players use brain more efficiently. According to Denworth, “spatial reasoning also improved after playing Halo, as determined two standard tests of this skill taken before and after the session” (Denworth3). In other words playing first person shooting games improves your learning and spatial reasoning skills based on the experiments that were performed. In addition, “new psychological studies are finding that as violent games become more realistic, constantly playing them can lead to a desensitization toward real violence” (Bilton1). This shows that playing violent games make children less sensitive towards violence. However, playing first person shooting game is good just to certain extent if you play it on daily basis it causes negative impact on the brain. It causes violence that leads to “a connection between games and gun violence”(Bilton2). It tells that violent first person shooting games lead to gun violence in real life because of it affect on human brain. Also the use of virtual reality technology for the first person shooting games can promote violence and effects the ability of vision.

So it is proved that first person shooting games have negative impact on brain because it cause addiction, promote violence and new virtual reality technologies making these games more realistic and have deep impact on the brain. Even if you play violent games and doesn’t seem to be effecting you but your brain focus on game and shape from it and in some ways it change the way you think. It also effects the decision you make in your life. There are still experiments going on to find more about how first person shooting games affect our brain in other ways. Just as the technology evolving there are more progression in studies for the affects of first person shooting games on brain but our brain is too complex and its hard to understand how it works but the limited use of violent first person shooting games can avoid these problems.

Work Cited

Bilton, Nick. “Gaming industry shows little patience for worries about realistic violence; Disruptions.” International New York Times. (June 16, 2014 Monday ): 918 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. Date Accessed: 2015/12/11.

Denworth, Lydia. “Brain-Changing Games.” Scientific American Mind 23.6 (2013): 28-35. Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

Jabeen, Mah, Personal interview.2 Dec 2015
Shadizai, Bilal. Personal interview. 2 Dec 2015

Weger U, Loughnan S. Virtually numbed: Immersive video gaming alters real-life experience. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review [serial on the Internet]. (2014, Apr), [cited December 11, 2015]; 21(2): 562-565. Available from: Academic Search Complete.