How Do Video Games Effect Children Professor Ramos Blog

How Do Video Games Effect Children Nick White Mr. Ramos English 101 August 5 2019   How do Video Games Effect Children Video games arent going anywhere in 2016 more than 150 million people in the united states alone play at least 3 hours a week. And in 2016 24.5 billion copies of games were sold and that number has been increasing every year. I always see on the news people talking about how video games are hurting kids but they never talk about all the good they can do as well. Games are just like food or alcohol they really arent harmful in moderation, its when you become addicted when it really starts becoming a problem. It is true that games can become addictive and promote violence but they also help with puzzle solving and hand eye coordination. A Lot of people only talk about the bad but video games have so many positives In 2017 Medical News Today published an article that analyzed 116 scientific studies and this is what they found (Nichols). The studies showed that playing video games did many things to the brain. They show that the games helped with the subjects attention but primarily sustained and selective attention. They also noticed that the regions of the brain that deal with attention take less activation to turn on and stay focused. The final thing they noticed was that after long term gaming the right hippocampus had actually become enlarged which helps with visuospatial recognition. When 116 studies all come up with the same results then those are some pretty undeniable results. This shows that from a young if kids played video games they would actually pay better attention but it would also be easier for them to pay attention because it would require less work. This is very important because at around age 6 kids literally only have an attention span of 5 minutes so giving them something fun and inviting like a game would help develop their brains a lot and help down the line. I can still remember the first game I ever played, it was Halo 2. Yet I dont remember anything else from that time period except the times me and my brother would play together so clearly videogames do something in our brains to make us remember. Video games arent all good though. Video Games have been proven to raise stress levels for the person playing them. That is why parents who have kids that game a lot note that they tend to act irritable. The games are triggering the fight or flight response in the brain so the slightest thing can set them off (Dunckley). The stimulation, the dopamine that is released when they are doing good, the increased heart rate as they get closer to winning or losing all fed directly into the reactionary system so when they finally beat that level they let out a big BOOYAW or when they lose again they scream and throw the controller. This amount of stress is not safe for kids as itll cause them to have â€Å"trouble managing emotions, suppressing impulses, following directions, dealing with frustration, and executing tasks†(Dunckley). I will be the first to testify that videogames to get me worked up and sometimes too worked up, the me in real life and me when I die in Fortnite are comp letely different people but the game has a way of bringing out the dark angry side in me and plenty of other people. The side effects of games is all just multiplied if the kid stays up late playing the game and then all the sudden turns it off and tries to sleep. This will cause them to toss and turn because their brain is still so active that it cant sleep and hinder the amount of REM(deep sleep) the child will get which will make the problems worse. Doctor Dunckley recommends that kids can play games but in very limited quantities and no screens 1 hour before bed time. In his article Rick Missimer talks about the positive and negative sides of videogames and the main good that videogames have is that they are invaluable to teach kids â€Å"some essential skills like strategic thinking, innovative thinking and co-operation†(missimer).When faced with a new problem or a new level in a game you have to use your whole brain to come up with a plan to get past this. Maybe you fail but even in failing you will learn something plus failure just pushes you to try harder and try new ideas. Most games now are either cooperative or online and this allows the gamer to work on their teamwork and communication. One game I play a lot is rainbow six siege and the only way to play is 5 people versus 5 people so you have to work with and communicate with your team who could be completely random people from around the globe that you have to work with to win. You could ignore them or be rude and lose or you talk to them and work as a team to get the job done sure maybe you still lose but maybe you made a new friend or learned something new. Being able to communicate and work with people is an extremely vital skill to have in the real world so being able to practice it and play a game sounds like a pretty good deal to me. So far games seem pretty good right? Well we havent gotten to the biggest downside of video games yet, addiction. Patrick Markey and Christopher Ferguson published a book in 2017 that says â€Å"video gaming raises dopamine levels in the brain to about the same degree that eating a slice of pepperoni pizza or dish of ice cream does† they then continue on and say â€Å"it raises dopamine to roughly double it’s normal resting level, whereas drugs like heroin, cocaine, or amphetamines raise dopamine by roughly ten times that much†(Gray). This goes to show that games arent nearly as addictive as we think they are. People still can become addicted and have negative effects but the addiction comes from somewhere else other than purely dopamine and reward based. In Doctor Grays article he says â€Å"Research shows that the great majority of video gamers, including those who are heavily immersed in games and spend large amounts of time at them, are at least as healthy psychologically, socially, and physically as are non-gamers†(gray). So why do people make such a big deal about being addicted to games when people who play a game that much dont even get affected. Most scientists agree that people arent addicted to the game itself theyre addicted to the escape it gives them from the real world which is a big problem. The more and more you become detached from reality the more and more dangerous you become because you start to believe things that arent true which i think is where people get the idea that video games make people dangerous because they look at the most extreme cases and that gives them the wrong idea. People can play violent video games and not be violent themselves but once they start imagining themselves in that world is when they start bringing that violence into the real world. That doesnt sound like an addiction that sounds like they have a mental problem that causes them to feel detached from real life and hide in their v ideo games. I have played violent games all my life and have played the absolute bloodiest games out there like Doom or even Call of duty. In Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 there is a mission where your character is given a large machine gun in a crowded airport. The 4 other men next to you also with large machine guns start shooting into the crowd and you are never told to shoot but you will because you recognize this is a game and all they are hurting is pixels not because you are some terrorist and this is training you for the mass shooting you are about to go commit at a walmart. People need to stop blaming violence on games and blame the actual causes or we will never fix whats wrong. Video games absolutely have their pros and cons but i have been playing video games since I can remember and feel fine. I know for a fact the games have helped my hand eye coordination because I can hit any button on the controller without looking. But sometimes it does feel like im addicted and many times videogames have stopped me from completing my work on time like this paper. But I still think videogames have more positives that outweigh the bad so we should keep them around. Work Cited Dunckley, Victoria. â€Å"This Is Your Child’s Brain on Video Games.† Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 25 Sept. 2016, psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-wealth/201609/is-your-childs-brain-video-games. Gray, Peter. â€Å"Sense and Nonsense About Video Game Addiction.† Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Mar. 2018, psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201803/sense-and-nonsense-about-video-game-addiction. Missimer, Rick. â€Å"The Impact of Video Games on Children.† HealthGuidance, healthguidance.org/entry/11051/1/The-Impact-of-Video-Games-on-Children.html. Nichols, Hannah. â€Å"How Video Games Affect the Brain.† Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 10 July 2017, medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318345.php.

Foster Care in the Criminal Justice System

Foster Care in the Criminal Justice System How Foster Care affects the criminal justice in the United States A detailed history of the creation of the social agency Historically, the destiny of dependent children has been put on adult’s contributions and goodwill where adults were expected to look after the dependent children. Throughout the history of the United States, the children welfare system has evolved according to shifting values and attitudes about what responsibilities governmental agencies should take in the defence and care of abandoned and abused children. In the US, it was English Poor Law, which led to the growth and eventual legislation of family foster care.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Foster Care in the Criminal Justice System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In the year 1562, these regulations permitted the placements of needy children into practice service until they were old enough to be self-sufficient. When the children beca me old enough, they were permitted to move on with life and live on their own. This system was brought to the US and marked the foundation of placing children into willing families. Although this practice allowed cruelty and mistreatment, it was a step ahead from almshouses where children didn’t gain any skills and were exposed to unbearable environs and unsavoury people. At this time, the early government interventions on behalf of children needing care were characterized more by realistic concerns about meeting the physical needs of children rather than by concern about the negative consequences of abuse and abandonment of children’s development. John (1993) notes â€Å"in 1636, at the time the Jamestown Colony was found, aged seven years old, Benjamin Eaton became US’s first foster child.† As public awareness about child abuse and the damage it caused grew, the importance of child protection received greater attention by government officials. (Tarren Hazell 2006) notes â€Å"in 1853, Charles Loring Brace, then a minister and director of the New York Childrens Aid Society, formed the free foster home movement group with the main concern of the increasing number of homeless and hungry children in the streets of New York.† Brace saw the need and came up with a system to offer these children homes. Acknowledging, it was Braces caring and imaginative actions which marked the beginning of the foster care agency. (John 1993).Advertising Looking for essay on family law? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Gradually, the foster care system started to take course. Starting in the early 1900s, the federal Government and other social bodies became more concerned and engaged themselves in looking and offering homes to these needy children. Now, foster parents were required to have licences and have reports and records to ensure that the children received proper care of in a decent and dependable manner. In 1997, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) was enacted and was meant to reduce the duration children were permitted to remain in foster care before they could be adopted. The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 was passed to help promote youths who were becoming of age to attain self-sufficiency. The most recent legislation is the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, which extends other benefits and financing for foster children at the age bracket, 18-21 and for Indian children in racial regions. A presentation of the mission statement of the social agency Foster care is inspired to provide a place where children can heal, fostering families build up, and where peacefulness and private development are achieved. The intention of foster care agency is to evade unnecessary institutionalization of children and adults by offering caring, community-based, in-home placings to the many needy children. The mission of foster care under the child welfare system in the United States is to provide care to children. The system recognizes that foster care should be an inclusive teamwork effort among the care-givers, social workers, the placing agencies, the birth parents, the children and those contributing to the children’s welfare. Foster care is not only put in place to cater for the provision of safe alternative homes for neglected children but to provide permanent and well being for the children. The role of foster care is a surrogate parent to the children and infants. The social agency’s role of provision of permanent and long-term foster care to children and young people in need of a permanent family placement is a very vital issue that the social agency strives to fulfill. It is not only relevant for the social agencies but also for the judicial system. Foster care promotes family-based assistance to out-of-home children by: enabling the exchange of information among persons and organizations of different regions; enhancing foster care as a vital plan of family based care; organizing conferences and seminars; consultations; socializing; and assistance. It aims at providing safe, permanent and fostering families within the children’s own environment by sustaining bonds; thus reducing the negative impacts.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Foster Care in the Criminal Justice System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Financial reports/summaries of the operations of the social agency In 1995, each state got more than $2.7 billion in federal aid for about half of the approximated The Federal government offers significant financial assistance to fund foster care programs. The government’s contribution is seen to have grown from about $300 million in 1981 to nearly $10 billion in 2005. According to the General Accounting Office, in 1993 almost $1.2 billion Federal dollars were allocated to foster care maintenance, while a supplementary $1.2 billion in refunds were allocated to states for foster care-related administrative programs in 495,000 children in foster care. By 2001, federal assistance rose to $4.7 billion with the number of foster care children assisted by the federal increasing by about 26%. According to a study conducted by the Child Welfare League of America, â€Å"the annual welfare cost of one child living with his or her mother is $2,644, while the average cost for the childs care in residential group care is $36,500.† (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services 2004). Currently, the annual expenditures on foster care services are estimated at 15 billion dollar. A critical analysis of the effectiveness of the social agency The Fosters care agency has a lot of challenges that affect its effectiveness when caring out its mandate. The social agency plays a very crucial role as it has a character of the social rehabilitation agency. The social agenc y faces limited recourses despite the fact that there has been a growing demand for the services nationally. Therefore the agency cannot carry it some of it vital roles hence lack the positive results that the agency is supposed to deliver. The lack of resources has resulted in missing the targets set by the agency as its daily expenditure increases especially in the training programs for the foster parents and adolescent children and in maintaining its interaction with the criminal justice system. (Harden 2004) The agency has a very intensive program which is involved in the training of children who have different social problems. The involvement of children in juvenile delinquencies stems from exposure to abuse and an extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects often co-occurs with mood and anxiety problems among children and young people. Other causes may be depressing relationships between the children and t heir surroundings and social hostility. For girls it is much more complex due to the fact that they are present in male oriented institutions and programs that are not well crafted to their specific needs. Therefore there is need for services to be based and set up in consideration of gender. This highlighted by figures showing a steady increase in delinquencies among females as compared to males (Lawrence, et al 2006) ways in which the social agency could improve its effectiveness towards its social goals.Advertising Looking for essay on family law? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The social agency in its endeavor to improve its effectiveness and realize its mission and goal of providing permanence in foster care to underprivileged children, should prepare reports on a monthly basis so as to assess progress and analyze what needs to be done. This reports should be discussed by all stakeholders so that solutions and policies being developed should be inclusive and be able to cater for all children under foster care whether males or females. The criminal justice board should carry out periodical monitoring workshops to ensure that the agencies are effective. Cooperation between the social agency and the criminal justice system is very vital for effective services to be realized. The social agency should adhere to performance analyst monitors put in place by the criminal justice system and analyses performance in relation to warrants, community penalty breaches and awarding of licenses. On the other hand, in case of breach of the rules and regulations by social agencies, the criminal justice system should effect penalties such as revocation of licenses. Prediction concerning the future of the social agency and its impact on the criminal justice system The Future of the social agency lies in it taking measures to correct the current challenges that it is facing in order to remain efficient and effective and more importantly, have a healthy and sustainable relationship with the criminal justice system. In order to do this, the agency should be well funded to run its programs effectively thus not experience budgetary constraints as it is have before. In addition the agency should recruit more Para-legal and legal staff to assist in the judicial and legal operations that hence making it easy to work with the criminal justice system by bringing corrective programs into its system at an early stage. Another issue affecting the agency is lack of enough placements hence more children are still being left out in hostile environments whereby they de velop into juveniles at a very young age and carry with them this trait into adulthood or into the foster care program should they get a placement. Past research has shown that former children in foster homes, at least 42 per cent of them ended in prisons once they got into adulthood while 15 percent of them got to prison during their teen hood. Therefore in order for the agency to be successful, apart from its economical and human resource factors, the agency should take into account the role that placement of children in homes has on them. Thus children who are placed in environmentally friendly homes grow to develop positive attributes while those who are in hostile environments develop negative attributes, a factor that plays a big role in them ending up in prison later on. Thus both the agency and the criminal justice system should device positive and educative training programs to train the children into being more positive and self conscience while getting rid of attributes t hey might have acquired during the foster program. Also there should be continuous supervision of children in the program to ensure that they are in placements that contribute to their welfare in the end. (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services 2004). Hence if all the above factors are taken into consideration, the agency is bound to produce positive results while decreasing the number of children who end up in the criminal justice system. References Harden, B (2004). Safety and stability for foster children: a developmental perspective. The Future of children / Center for the Future of Children, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Vol. 11, pp 34-89. John K. ( 1993). Adoption of Children with Special Needs, Brookings Institution: The Future of Children, Vol. 3, Adoption, pp. 62-76 Lawrence, C. Carlson, E Egeland, B (2006). The impact of foster care on development. Development and psychopathology, Vol 1, pp. 57–76. Tarren, M; Hazell, P (2006). Mental health of children in foster and kinship care in New South Wales, Australia. Journal of paediatrics and child health, Vol 3, pp. 89–97. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, (2004). Child Maltreatment, Vol 6, pp.25-96.

University of Cape Town MBA Application Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

University of Cape Town MBA Application - Essay Example This essay is aimed to provide an application paper to the Masters of Business Administration school in Cape Town. The researcher states that, first of all, one requires several types of preparation before entering a program of such demanding nature. This partly refers to the academic and skill-related preparation, which is required in order to facilitate the learning process that is involved in the Masters of Business Administration program. However, it also refers to the mental preparation and the background research that one needs to do before embarking on such an intense journey. The researcher endeavored to prepare himself in each of these aspects before entering the program. The researcher believes that his Mathematics refresher course at Kaplan has contributed to his academic and skill-related preparation, as has his Masters of Business Administration preparation course for universities. Apart from this, the researcher also consulted several professionals in this field for adv ice as well as mental preparation about what to expect from this program. This advice was especially useful coming from some of the UCT the Masters of Business Administration alumni whom he spoke too. Each of them had several tips and advice to share with the researcher, and they assured him of the rewarding experience that it was, mainly due to its challenging nature. After this thorough preparation in both mental and skill-related aspects, the researcher feels equipped to embark on this journey and look forward to the experience.