Abdus Samad

12750

Are We Becoming Post-Human: Technology, Society and Ethics

Final Essay

Topic: Desensitization Through Video Games: A Device Paradigm

Introduction to the Topic:

Video games have fast become an essential part of the average teenager’s daily or weekly

recreational activities. Starting to gain popularity in the 1970’s due to the invention of arcade

gaming machines, the more developed type of video games that are seen today on television,

phone, and computer screens got popularized at the advent of personal computing. Once

companies like Apple and Microsoft made sure that human beings felt that they needed personal

computers in their houses, early video game developers started making games that personalized

the player’s experience and forced the player to indulge in the video game. Today, the video game

stands as a marvel of graphic media and communicative technology. However the shocking

realism of violence and the ease of exploring unethical and immoral actions through video games,

poses a threat to our understanding of ethics: do video games negatively impact our concepts of

ethic and morality, in the process, making us post human? There are some ethical issues that are

specific to a given technology and that cannot be separated from that technology. Such ethical

issues related are to function. Technology thus raises general questions of values, and is generally

value-laden through its inherent function. Every technology has a function, and every function is

related to a purpose and a value.

A device paradigm:

Albert Borgmann, a prominent philosopher of technology, rejects technological determinism; the

view that technology is an irresistible force that forces our hand as we shape our culture, and

technological instrumentalism; which sees technology as a mere collective of neutral processes

and structures that can be used either well or badly.

Borgmann realizes that the kind of recreational satisfaction that we look for in video games and

television is hollow. Borgmann asserts that we continuously compensate for this hollowness by

using increasingly more technologies and not realizing as technology incurs cultural

displacements, embeds itself in contemporary culture, commodifying and mechanizing our social

psychology.

A device paradigm is the state we have entered due to our reliance on technology. Everything we

need is now available from the comfort of the single click of a button, at will and at any time.

This is an example of technology reduces human activity and struggle. It also represents the basis

of technological mentality which is the expectation increasing freedom and prosperity.

Technology disburdens humans from struggles, pain and limits of things that are real and which

Borgmann considers “focal practices”, which we shall later explore.

Instrumental Value of video games:

Video games have pervaded significantly deeper into our society than what we like to admit.

According to a report, eighty percent of video game players today spend an average amount of

five hours per week playing video games.1 Not only this, the computer and video game industry

1
Royal Van Horn, 1999, “Violence and Video Games” The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81, No. 2

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20439610
has gradually become a giant in the consumer retail sector, with a market value that now exceeds

both the film and the music industries. “Currently, the market value of the video gaming industry

is more than $25 billion, and estimates predict an increase to $54.6 billion by 2009. Long gone

are the days of home-brewed games developed by two industrious teenagers in a darkened

garage. Gone is the simplicity of Pong and Pac-Man. Development teams on premier video

games may now easily have more than 100 people working on them. Video games have original

scores, detailed artwork, directors, producers, and story lines that rival many movies. As

evidenced by the video game Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, movies are now being based on video

games, just as games have long been based on movies. This indicates a dramatic change in the

perception of video games in the entertainment industry.”2

Potential risks of video games:

Video games pose a potential threat that has not been conclusively researched yet. “It is

necessary to dig deep into research studies to discover the truths they suggest. In particular, the

data must be disaggregated. Most children are probably not harmed at all by their casual and

recreational use of video games. However, it does seem that there are subgroups within the

population of children who may indeed be "at risk" when it comes to playing violent video

games. Heavy gamers are naturally more at risk since they have so much more exposure to the

2
Joel E. Collier, Pearson Liddell, Jr. and Gloria J. Liddell, 2008 “Exposure of Violent Video

Games to Children and Public Policy Implications” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol.

27, No. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25651584 Accessed: 15-12-2019 16:32 UTC

games. Young children are another group that is obviously more likely to be at risk. And other

research suggests that children with low self-concepts or low mental age are at risk as well.3

Another journal in favor of video gaming, or at least not intent on criminalizing it, writes that

politicians and other moral crusaders frequently create villains, individuals or groups defined as

evil and immoral. The representation of these villains allow us to channel our blame and fear,

offering a clear course of action to remedy what many believe to be a growing problem. Video

games, those who play them, and those who create them have become contemporary villains in

the eyes of researchers and concerned parents because they seem to pose a threat to children. The

journal also mentions that “Since the early days of radio and movies, investigators have searched

for possible effects - typically negative - that different media may have on audiences, especially

children. Such research became more intense following the rise in violent crime in the United

States between the 1960s and early 1990s, focusing primarily on television. Several hundred

studies asked whether exposure to media violence predicts involvement in actual violence.”4

At the same time as the afore mentioned researches, experimental studies have also shown time

and again that violent video games cause people to behave more aggressively, sometime after

they have stopped playing the video game. Over the progress of time, video game players who

expose themselves to delayed periods of virtual violence show signs of aggressive thoughts,

3
Royal Van Horn, 1999, “Violence and Video Games” The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81, No. 2

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20439610

4
karen sternheimer, 2007, “do video games kill?” Contexts, Vol. 6, No. 1

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41802732 Accessed: 15-12-2019 16:27 UTC

feelings, and behavioral tendencies active much longer after they have stopped playing the video

game. If players ruminate about the violence in a game, the aggression-stimulating effects of the

game persist long after it has been turned off.

It is almost as if the media and researched are keen on developing a relationship between

violence and video games. However true or untrue this may be, it is no the onus of this essay to

prove. The connection of video games with that of a device paradigm is hardly that of violence,

but one of gratification and a loss of autonomy.

Escape from reality: A false sense of gratitude and autonomy

Video games function on a model of gratification that is viciously addictive; as the player wins in

a video game, the video game become more and more attractive thus being able to maintain the

dopamine levels in a player’s mind. Repetitive dopamine based gratification is a mark of

addiction and besides video games, it is most commonly associated with substance abuse and

drugs. It is safe to say that video game addiction is, as of yet, an unrecognized mental disorder.

Through personal experience and numerous well known cases, it is easy to notice people with

real life responsibilities waste hours in front of a screen, ignoring everyone and everything

around them. Often video game players set records of completing entire games in single sittings.

There should be no doubt that it can become damaging and have negative emotional, social,

relational, educational, or career-related consequences.”

Many people don’t seem to recognize that video games are manufactured to do this. This

phenomenon can perhaps be understood as a false sense of achievement. At the end of the day,

when the game is beaten and the player has completed the challenges, none of those rewards

carry forward into reality.

Video games keep us playing by giving us virtual and unreal goals we must reach. The appeal of

having something to show to the video game players’ community through the Internet, an play a

big part in diluting our sense of reality and responsibility. There is a certain amount of work and

reward inherent in playing games: one dies and restarts over and over until the challenge is

complete. Once completed, there are usually prizes to make characters stronger or give the player

more options.

Playing out fantasies in games is not a new concept to society. Novels and stories exist to bring

their audience into a new world away from the reality they come from. Video games are just one

of the newest media on the scene to give audiences this experience, only they have an element of

control; players can interact with the virtual world, control it, and manipulate it. They empower

themselves, or build creations born of their imaginations. It can be easy to get lost in these kinds

of scenarios.

However, for some people, the false sense of achievement — the feeling that they have

accomplished something with their time — dominates above all else, and the reward system

keeps players playing. There is a growing trend and appreciation for a condition in which players

of video games quickly become detached from their realities and invest increasingly more into

their virtual selves.

It can be concluded therefore that gore and false power are not the thrill of a video game. A

common belief held by many gamers and many in the video game industry is that violence is

what makes a game fun. Instead, video game players crave feelings of control and competence.

Games give a ridiculous sense autonomy, the freedom to take lots of different directions and

approaches, allowing the player to enter a self-imposed stupor at the hands of technology. It

could possibly also be proven that violence alone does not affect players' enjoyment of the
games; feelings of competence and autonomy are factors crucial to many different aspects of

happiness, and self-determinism, 5 quite similar in fact, to the sense of achievement that

Borgmann talks about.

Focal Things and Practices:

According to Borgmann, focal things and practices are the human activities that make life

meaningful. Focal things include reading books, playing musical instruments, athletic equipment,

artistic indulgence, and the treasures of nature. They are correlated to focal practices such as

reading, reciting poetry, playing instruments, dining, walking, sporting activities, painting,

sculpting, fishing, gardening, rock collecting, and so on. They can further be characterized as

activities that engage our creativity, ingenuity and sociability, and are re-creative even as they

require investment of self. When magnified in scale, they are also the basis of all communal

celebration.

Focal practice as opposed to video games:

The problem at hand is that the more intensive focal activities usually require greater investment

of effort than their electronic replacements, that is, video games. It is considered far easier to let

children turn on the television or gaming console, than it is to get them to settle into a book, draw

pictures, play board games or go outside. The large amount of time that can pass in the virtual

world is also noticeable by anyone who has engaged in it, as well as the resulting phenomenon of

listlessness, boredom and irritability after these activities are finished.

Why focal practices are important:

5
Laura Sanders, 2009 “Gamers Crave Sense of Control: Feeling Competent Matters More than

Violence, Blood” Science News, Vol. 175, No. 4 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20465878

According to Borgmann, this is in direct contrast to the general consolation and vitality that

usually results from focal practices. There is an investment of effort, however, that needs to be

made in the focal practice, such as the first few steps on a run or the actual composition of pen

on paper that deters the human motivation into choosing technology. What we have forgotten, is

that that added organizational or that extra motivation is much more gratifying, often

proportionate to the pleasure that the performer of a focal activity feels. It is quite simple in

concept, for video games, the satisfaction is at a low threshold hence the lower reward. For a

focal practice like reading, the satisfaction is at a greater threshold, hence the greater reward.

Why have we forgotten focal practices?

The most arduous part of a focal practice, and also the key characteristic is the burdensome part

of putting in the initial effort. The initial effort is like a threshold that once crossed, the burden

completely dissolves. Once we are playing an outdoor sport, cooking the meal, or even walking

in the outdoors, reading a book or playing the piano, or praying, the burden has lifted and the

deeper sense of satisfaction usually arises. There is a purpose and depth to these activities as

opposed to the more frail and frenzied spirit of video games.

Conclusion:

To conclude, it is the dire need of our time to research technology as we go forth, and understand

that in our pursuit of progress, we must not let the means become the ends. Making means

become ends signifies that technology’s functional value becomes something which is valued.

We must not forget that technology is of instrumental value. We come to use and value

technology because it gives us pleasure or ease. It is also noteworthy that technology tends to

change us, either in a liberating or confining manner. Although not established to be harmful or
on the contrary, it can safely be established that video games are device paradigms that must be

countered with focal practices in our daily lives.

Counter Strike has affected our generation in a dozen ways. Counter strike has made us so prone to violence

and the battlefield that going on a war means nothing to us. The depicted chivalry of soldiers and the glory of

war in the game has completely erased the horrors of war out of our minds.

The creators of the game have worked on the tiniest details. Every character has a background storyline. The

terrorist team has characters from Middle East, South America, and Soviet Union. All of these nations are

avenging the world’s great powers as they have suffered repression and degradation by them. The ideology

which has compelled these three different nations to wage war against the occidentals is their mutual hatred for

them.

On the other hand, the counter-terrorist team contains soldiers from USA, Germany, France, and the Great

Britain which has successfully established the goodwill and superiority of these nations over others. This

animosity among the nations and their conflicting interests and beliefs have resulted in the violence which has

ultimately led to war as depicted in the game. The violence is the basic tool of war. All the wars in the history

were the product of the escalating violence. The violent behavior of the terrorists in order to attain their

objectives, as shown in the game, and the retaliation done by the counter-terrorists either by obstructing the

former’s objective or killing them has resulted in the war between them. Neither of the teams hesitate to kill

their opponent in the way of fulfillment of their agenda.