Research



Lauren Wolf --> Kenny Ng: A. Revise my paragraphs after I have written them to watch for my grammar B. Change the word "you" into something else so that I'm not like talking to the reader C. Make sure I put Citations to the end of an idea, that means including the explanation of the quote D. Reword sentences so that I'm not talking as I'm writing E. Explain words that is in my research which might not be known by the readers F. Make sure period goes before quotes

Jill Simmons --> Kenny Ng: A. Change the word "you" - not good on paper B. Explain words that is in my research which might not be known by the readers C. Watch out for my grammar D. Period goes before quotes

Jamie Rodgers --> Kenny Ng: A. Edit grammar B. Period goes before quotes C. D.



A minimum of 2 total pages due: Tuesday, March 9, 2010

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due: Friday, March 12, 2010

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due: Sunday, March 14, 2010

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due: Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Tuesday, March 9, 2010**
 * A minimum of 2 total pages due:

Think back when you were a teenager and when your parents brought you a video game for your birthday or holiday, how much fun it was and how much time you spent on it trying to beat the game. As you grow older, we tend to look forward in games, such as graphics, game play, and maybe even online communication. Well Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games seems to be the popular genre of games in the 20th and 21st century. There also known as MMORPG, they let you communicate online with endless amount of people all over the world with endless amount of quests and missions. Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games lets you take action over a character with different abilities and special skills. Generally, players get to customize their own unique character with different type of jobs such as warriors and mages. Each job in the game are usually set up to be a fair class, they also have their own unique “buffs”, which are supporting moves to all player around the buffer or players in the buffer’s party group. With that being said, all players in MMORPG has fair class to begin with, but most players tends to go above other players in the game, which is getting better damage than others, combat equipments, and getting higher levels. Those are usually the three types of motivation for players to play for a long time and to be “successful” in it. A typical MMORPG involves many quest, different monsters, loots, which are drops from defeating monsters or enemies, and also communicating in a guild or a clan. Being in guild can help make player more “successful” in a MMORPG and it also let players to communicate in a comfortable environment. To make progress on MMORPG, players have to defeat monsters or complete quest in order to gain experience points (exp), which are use for “level ups”. Gaining combat equipments and being high level requires a lot of time, this sometime forces people to miss or schedule around their real-life schedule in order to catch up or keep up to their progress. This information lets me believe that High school students who play Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games tend to have poor grades due to their addiction to game playing and lack of sleep. If you ask a high school student who plays MMORPG what they do when they get home, most of them would answer either turning on computer in order to play MMORPG or something that involves MMORPG. The reason for that is because most students who play MMORPG in high school are addicted to it. For the past 11 years, A study from “Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzach, a clinical psychologist at Mclean Hospital in Massachusetts” (Reimer) has shown that 40 percent of players who play World of Warcraft are addicted to the game. World of Warcraft (WoW) is a famous MMORPG and also known as the top MMORPG in the world right now. In 2006, there are 6.5 million players who play WoW alone and 40 percent is an equivalent to 2.6 million players who are addicted to MMORPG. Tim Wu also did a research on MMORPG as well and this is what he said, “about 50% of MMORPG players would consider themselves addicted to the game. Some have tried to quit but failed” (Wu), this shows how serious MMORPG can affect people. From age 12-17, there are 60.3% males and 60.9% females who play 10 hours or more continuously, this is a big impact on high school students because they would have no time to studies or to do any of their school work. High school students get out of school roughly around 3pm and 10 hours continuous playing would end up 1am or later. From ages 11-17, males spent 25.49 hours or more on MMORPG each week and females spent 24.13 hours, In other word kids from ages 11-17 who plays MMORPG spent 1 out of 7 days playing MMORPG. MMORPG is also compare to drugs and alcohols because of how addicted this genre of game it can be.

Friday, March 12, 2010**
 * At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due:

I have also experience the addiction that was caused by a MMORPG but I was able to control my addiction and eventually quitted the game. There are many reasons how players can be addicted to Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, for examples being best in the world is always something to achieve for, to do so, it requires endless amount of hours in order to achieve that, such as getting highest level, best equipments, and also getting famed in your world that you’re playing in. With that goal being set in your mind, the game would never get bored and you would always have something to do even when you think you have the game beaten. The better and higher level you get in the game, the more value and needs you will get from you guild/ clan and your friends online. Being value and needs from others can also earn you respect and the admiration, which will motivate you to keep playing more and achieve something more difficult. “This is a rewarding and satisfactory feeling of conquering and achieving something difficult” (Schmoyer). This is very true because this is exactly how I felt when I was playing the game and that was one of the reason that kept me playing for so long and never realize how addicted I was. Also having total control over how your character acts can be very attempted to play more and more since you can created you own characters strength and weaknesses unlike other types of games such as sport and shooting where the characters are already preset. It gives you unique equipments, skills, different build of a character, and also a unique personality which can also give you a special feeling about how you’re different and special from everyone else in the world. Another main reason why a MMORPG is addictive is because death doesn’t cause “game over” or ends the game. With that special effect, players can attempt the harder boss over and over again until he/she achieves it which than again gives a rewarding and satisfactory feeling by defeating or competing the mission. Being unable to die also gives a player an invincible feeling about themselves. All these addiction caused too much playing time and also taking up time from school work and social life. Without time to studies or do homework, student tends to do poorly in school and they are most likely unable to focus on school work. When they can’t focus on school work, they are more likely to think about the game they are playing or how they can make more progress. There are other signs which show gamers who play MMORPG is addicted to the game. Dry eyes from long period of playing time and continues to play, “problems with school or jobs” (Unhealthy Gaming Habits and Addiction), and “Loss of interest in other activities” (Signs of MMORPG addiction). These signs of addiction caused many problems for student and their future because not being able to do well in school at an early age would affect their acceptance to college in the future. Another example I have is a mother who had seek help from Dr. Kimberly Young, Director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery because her son was so addicted to MMORPG that she doesn’t know what to do with him.

“I should try to limit my son's game-playing. They didn't understand that I couldn't. He had lost touch with reality. My son lost interest in everything else. He didn't want to eat, sleep, or go to school; the game was the only thing that mattered to him. When I told him to get off-line, he yelled, screamed, and once, he pushed me.” (Signs of MMORPG addiction).

This shows how addicting a MMORPG can be and the effects from it is enormous, the kid would not eat sleep or go to school, this impacts on his health and not being able to go to school means he would not be able to do well academically. People and students would sacrifice social life activities and school just to spend more time on MMORPG. This example shows one of the most dangerous effect that has happened to a student because not only his academic is going down but his entire life is being jeopardize.

Sunday, March 14, 2010**
 * At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due:

Online communication is a common way to communicate and have fun at the same time. Communicating through a MMORGP is even more fun and an easy way to make online friends and playing with each other to achieve higher level missions. According to Tim Schmoyer, “relationships between real-life people abound and thrive in these online communities and all the women are beautiful and all the men are handsome” (Schmoyer). In order to defeat boss and get victory, power does not always come in first, Strategy and critical thinking are very useful and is an ultimate way to win games, in other words the smartest and most knowledgeable players usually comes on top. This type of games often attracts a lot of young players who are “often picked on or feel physically inferior” (Schmoyer). Players who are addicted to MMORPG usually have the same characteristic, the common characteristic that they share are depression, elevated stress levels, social anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, and excessive boredom. All these addictions can cause players to skip school, not study, and not doing their assignments. Skipping school and not doing their assignments causes major problems for student academically and for their future as well. One of the main reasons why they don’t do well academically is because they do not have enough sleep due to overplaying MMORGP. Average student needs 9.2 hours each night in order to be able to learn well and be able to concentrate in a healthy environment. But players who are addicted to MMORPG rather spent their bed time into more playing time to achieve and make progress will get less bed time and most likely to be unable to concentrate and “reduces their cognitive abilities” (SirGan) during the morning classes, which leads to decrease in their academic achievements. “Studies have shown that a person can demonstrate knowledge only when they’ve had more than six hours of sleep” (SirGan), with that being said, addicted players who spent their bed time playing MMORPG will most likely to fail in their academic achievements or do poorly compare to students who gets enough sleep. Amy R. Wolfson and Mary A. Carskadon, who study the Understanding adolescents, she had publish evidence where lack of sleep can effect school greatly. Her evidence had shown that ““Poor sleepers” were significantly more likely to fail to meet requirements for their grade level” (Lack of Sleep Linked to Poorer Academic Performance, Behavior), being addicted to MMORPG will most likely cost poor sleep schedule for students and having trouble to wake up for morning classes on the next day. Another important evidence that came from her is that a 15 – 30 minutes sleep a night can make student’s grade from having A’s and B’s to C’s or worse. Student with better grades have reported more sleep time than students who has less poor grades and less sleeping time, also the same students with more sleep usually get A’s and B’s while student with less sleep time get C’s or worse. Once again players who rather give up their bed time for more MMORPG playing will come up with the same result because of their lack of sleeps. People who doesn’t have enough sleep with usually doze off during class and unable to absorb information into their brain which will cost poor grades. There are no exact treatments of MMORPG addictions because these addictions could be avoided if parents pay more attentions to their kids. Most of these students who play MMORPG have no parental control, that’s why their able to play as long as they want until they get tire. What parents can do to cut down their kid’s game playing time is setting a bed time for them or setting a time to cut off the internet in the house. That way they would not be able to play massive multiplayer online games and hoping they would go to bed and be ready for next day. Also parents can be stricter and be able to control they computer usage. Another thing that parents can do to help their kids is to set up sport events where students would not be able to get near a computer after school or on their free time. Setting up events on their free time can really help them because they would not be thinking about MMORPG and eventually they would play less and less and soon or later, they would be lay off of MMORPG. If parents can control their kid’s game playing time than they would have more time to sleep and therefore, students would be able to concentrate better during classes and do better academically.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010**
 * At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due:

Large majority of the treatment come of the players itself because gamers who truly understands about their addiction will killed their characters or remove the game from their console completely. However most of the addicted gamers aren’t too successful at doing that, for example, “Often gamers refuse treatment until they become deeply depressed, are kicked out of school, are terminated from a job, are threatened with divorce and separation, or are thinking about suicide” (Treatment for MMORPG addiction), this example shows how gamers do not want to be bother until something serious happens. Being able to realize their addictions are important, that is why friends and family needs to realize their friends or family are addicted and let them know what is happening. Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack as I mention above have also suggest that they should have warning labels like cigarette boxes do, that way parents and players who buy the games would at least know or realize the effect of MMORPG can cause. Some other country have done to these addicted gamers is shutting down the network at certain time so all players would not be able to get on or play, this way they are forced to do something else and get their minds off the game. For example, “In Thailand, gamers have been banned from game servers between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m” (Paris), this will certainly help addicted gamers to get their minds off and have a game amount of sleep. In China, Chinese polices have attempt to kick students out of internet café or internet center if they have spend more than five hours of playing time, “In addition, China has set up rehabilitation clinics that use counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis, and mild electric shocks” (Paris), I think this is a very good way to help addicted gamers so they would have less playing time. In conclusion, students who are addicted to MMORPG can really jeopardize their school career and caused them many other problems. The main reason that caused their poor academic is because they are so addicted to MMORPG that they are willingly to give up other activities and school just so they can spend more playing time. Another reason that caused poor grades is because students are not getting enough sleep, which caused them to be unable to learn in school, which caused poor academic. Overall, students who are addicted to MMORPG will definitely do poorly or worse than not playing MMORPG.