IB HL ITGS Portfolio Examples

International Baccalaureate

Information Technology in a Global Society

Portfolio Number One Violence in Video Games and Its Impact on Children (AoE: Arts, Entertainment, and Leisure) November, 2007-11-26 International School of Beijing

NEWS ITEM SUMMARY Rockstar Games’ new game, Manhunt 2, has sparked controversial debates since June 2007 due to its extremely graphical violence. The game follows the story of a madman who escapes from an asylum and consists entirely of gruesome death scenes. In Britain, the game has been banned, even after the producers modified it from its adult rating to a mature. As a result of this, parents have been advised to not buy this game in order to protect their children from game violence. This violence, they believe, will influence their children into imitating the violence portrayed within the game and lead to harsh consequences.

"Parents Warned About 'Pornographic Violence' of 'Manhunt 2' Video Game." FoxNews. 1 Nov. 2007. 16 Nov. 2007 <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306421,00.html>.

Presentation of the issue Video games have always incorporated violence, starting with early games such as Space Invaders to World of Warcraft and Max Payne of our modern era. Today, only 15% of all games produced incorporate violence (Lombradi). However, parents still fear that their children are typically attracted to this genre and will be affected by the violence portrayed within, sparking a continuous debate regarding the control of these games.

According to FoxNews, the main basis of this analysis, “[Manhunt 2] has been sparking controversy since June, when the Entertainment Software Rating Board gave it [an adult rating]”.

The reason behind this rating was to give a “very clear and firm warning to parents that the game is in no way intended for children”. However, children still continued to play it. Soon, parents began to worry that their children would be influenced by the game, as illustrated by the People and Machines issue stated in the syllabus. They believed that the children would imitate the actions performed by the character, leading to severe consequences in the child’s life (“Parents Warned About…”).

The IT Background of the issue The most important concept involved in violent video games is the many different skills integrated into their game play; the most prominent ones being stealth, weapon usage, agility, and strategy. Once a player purchases a new game, he/she must spend time to learn the game play basics.

On average, a violent game’s learning curve, the time it takes to learn the game play basics, is about 30 mins. This learning time is included in the time required to complete a game. For Manhunt 2, game players ranged their completion time from 20 to 40 hours. This time will also vary for each player, depending highly on his/her overall skillfulness at such games (“Manhunt for Playstation…”).

There were many different IT developments that led to the wide-spread playing of video games, the main one being the invention of gaming consoles, such as the modern day Playstation and PC. Since the inception of video games, there have been between 150-200 consoles invented (“List of video…”). With such a profuse amount of consoles, many of the gamers in our modern world can easily purchase and play. Another IT development that shouldered the spread of violent video games is the internet. Many games use the internet, allowing players to play and interact with each other.

This multiplayer aspect to certain games provided the games with an incentive for players to play more and more (“Video Game Invasion…”).

The gaming world’s future trends in regards to sales and interest tend to slope upwards as games become more and more developed. Already, our games are strikingly realistic, bringing to the gamer great amounts of fun and to the gaming firms, great amounts of sales. In the future, gaming will be a completely different technology. Virtual reality will allow the gamer to literally enter the gaming world, ushering in a whole new style of game play. This novel invention will certainly attract more and more consumers, children included, to play, thus further increasing the risk of violent influence (Rowland).

Impact of the issue In regards to violence in video gaming, the main stakeholders are the players, parents of young players, and gaming companies all around the world.

It is believed by some critics and players that violent games can improve certain physical and mental aspects of one’s body, especially with children. Strategy games are said to be intellectually enhancing, for they can allow the player learn about history, while first-person shooter games are believed to stimulate and improve one’s reflexes (“Benefits of Gaming”).

However, the majority of critics and parents believe that the negative influence these games has on children is the essential focus. The psychological consequence that parents fear is the influencing of children to enjoy weapons and promote war. In turn, this influence can lead to many negative societal consequences such as higher crime rates (Lombradi). Also, anti-violence advocates believe that gaming in general can lead to serious health problems caused through over-stimulation and another psychological problem, isolation (“Digital Violence Games”).

Gaming companies have been inundated with different forms of counter-action from parents through anti-violence advocates, causing them to lose sales and profit. There are two ways that anti-violence lobbyists attack gaming firms, either through the demotion of violent video game purchases or the suing of these firms. Both of these consequences bring negative effects to gaming firms, causing them to lose substantial amounts of profit and sales (“Video Game Invasion…”).

Solutions to problems arising from the issue One of many feasible solutions to attack violence in video games is the education of parents.

The protection of children from violent games depends largely on the parents’ education because if parents are knowledgeable in protecting their children from these games, the risk of influence will decrease. There are two ways parents can do so. The first is the removal of violent games in the child’s life, which will neutralize the influence of these games on children. The second one is to help the child differentiate good and bad, allowing the child to develop a sense of self-responsibility for his/her own actions (Parvaz, “A.J., 12, Sees…”).

Once again, this brings negative consequences to gaming firms, for they will lose large sums of profit from the dwindling demand of these games. As a result of this, gaming firms may change to alternative genres to evade the risks of losing money, such as educational games.

In regards to parents and children, the education of children through parents brings many benefits. This primarily fosters a strong parent-child relationship and family interconnectedness, for it will not only protect the child, but maintain a healthy family as well. Consequently, this promotes better parenting, because the parent will assume higher responsibility in keeping their children safe from the dangers of video gaming. Even society will benefit for the crime rate of children in the future will decrease substantially (Parvaz, “Parents Need To…”). However, there are still children who continue to play while neglecting their parent’s care and advice. Despite this fact, the control of violent games by parents is steadily improving and will remain maintained (“Digital Violence Games”).

Word Count: 998 (Excluding Cover Page and Bibliography)

Works Cited "Benefits of Gaming." Everything2. 11 Jan. 2002. 16 Nov. 2007 <http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1232666>.

"Digital Violence Games." Digital Violence. 20 Nov. 2007 <http://www.digitalviolence.org/violent-video-games/>.

"List of Video Game Consoles." Wikipedia. 18 Nov. 2007. 16 Nov. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_consoles>.

Lombardi, Candace. "Are Violent Video Games Really a Problem?" ZDNet. 2 Aug. 2006. 21 Nov. 2007 <http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6101471.html>.

"Manhunt for Playstation 2 Review." Gamespot. 10 Aug. 2007. 20 Nov. 2007 <http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/manhunt/player_review.html?id=483650#>.

"Parents Warned About 'Pornographic Violence' of 'Manhunt 2' Video Game." FoxNews. 1 Nov. 2007. 16 Nov. 2007 <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306421,00.html>.

Parvaz, Degaetano. "A.J., 12, Sees Clear Line Between Reality and Games." Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 14 Oct. 1999. Hearst Newpapers. 22 Nov. 2007 <http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/videogameviolence/plyr14.shtml>.

Parvaz, Degaetano. "Parents Need to Take First Step, author says." Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 14 Oct. 1999. Hearst Newpapers. 14 Nov. 2007 <http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/videogameviolence/stop14.shtml >.

Rowland, Emory. "Gaming in the Future." ClickFire. 22 Nov. 2007 <http://www.clickfire.com/viewpoints/articles/gaming/gaming_in_the_future.php>.

Video Game Invasion: the History of a Global Obsession. Dir. David Comtois. Perf. Tony Hawk.

DVD. Beantown Productions, 2004.

International Baccalaureate

Information Technology in a Global Society

Portfolio Number Two

Cyber bullying: How is it being dealt with?

(Area of Impact: Education)

March, 2008 International School of Beijing

News Item Summary: Bullying has made its way into the internet. Not only are students subject to this form of bullying, but adults are too. In some schools, teachers are ridiculed online by students who dislike teachers, and little could have been done about it. Now, laws are becoming much stricter. Some of the pranksters were even arrested for such crimes. Schools are also starting to put their foot down, and stop the trouble at its source.

Jonsson, Patrik. "Teachers Strike Back At Student's Online Pranks." CS Monitor 25 Feb. 2008. 26 Feb. 2008 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0225/p01s02-usgn.html>.

Criterion A – Presentation of the issue Bullying is something that has been around for a very long time. With the arrival of the internet, a new kind of bullying came along – cyber bullying. According to stopcyberbullying.org, cyber bullying is “when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones.” (Aftab) There has to be a minor on both sides, otherwise it is cyber harassing or cyber stalking. These days, cyber bullying has become a much bigger deal everywhere since it became so easy to do it via a blog, and anyone can be a victim. In the article "Teachers Strike Back At Student's Online Pranks" by Patrik Jonsson, students who did such things were subject to much stricter laws. They could be arrested, or punished in school through ways such as suspension or detentions.

Cyber bullying is not a minor ethical and social issue, either. In a survey in 2004 by i-SAFE Inc. of 1500 students, 42% of them said to have been bullied while online, and 25% of those have had it happen more than once. Unfortunately, it is hard to resolve as mostly anyone with internet access can cyber-bully.

Figure a. Survey results of students grade 4-8 ("Cyber-Bullying: Statistics and Tips.")

Criterion B – IT Background The main technology development that lead to the invention of blogs was the creation of the internet. A blog is similar to a diary or a journal, and has been around since newsgroups and online diaries (“Blogs.”). It is a place where a person can write about whatever they want to, and people are

usually free to read it.

The IT concept of a blog, including the process of getting one and posting content is very simple. Firstly, there are many websites that will allow you to register for a free account, such as Xanga, Blogger, or MSN Spaces. Registering involves choosing a username, a password, entering your email, and some profile information for you to fill out, as well as some designing options for your website.

After registering, one simply clicks on a button labelled “New Post” or something similar, and can then enter a title, a post, and format it to look how they want.

Figure b. Number of Blogs graph. (Blogging: Statistics and Demographics.)

As the graph above shows, the trends in blogging has risen up to ~33 million since March 2003.

Blogging websites are expected to become more and more popular, leading to even more blogging.

In terms of the cyber bullying, it is very hard to stop. Many are proactively attempting to stop it, such as the creator of www.stopcyberbullying.org, while there are those that believe it is impossible to prevent (Hodson). There are two issues related to trying to remove cyber bullying. The first is that it is very hard to prevent people from posting such content online or managing it without hindering free speech rights. The second is that if cyber bullying is treated more as a crime, there will be a large number of “cyber criminals” and the crime rate would go up.

Criterion C – Impact of the issue There are three stakeholders for this issue. They are the bully, the victim, and the government.

In this article, the bully was the student and the victims were the teachers. However, in a global society, the bully and the victim could be anyone – two adults, an adult and a teenager, and so on. For the bully, laws are becoming stricter and so they are more likely to be in trouble for such actions. Victims are being affected emotionally and psychologically as a result of the bullying. Governments, as well as law enforcement regimes worldwide need to find a solution to cyber bullying, but without hindering free speech rights.

The social and ethical issues related to cyber bullying are privacy as well as policies and standards. When a blogger posts anything about another person, that person’s privacy is at risk. It is also an issue because the victim can do very little about taking that post off of the internet. Policies and standards is an issue because our already-established free speech rights will most likely be affected by attempts to prevent cyber bullying. Another social impact is that of the victim, because cyber bullying can affect them emotionally and psychologically. For example, in situations such as Jennifer Gabrielle’s (“Scared of Cyberbullying?”), the victim was emotionally stressed from the cyber bully constantly tormented her online, and other victims became afraid because they ended up not truly knowing who their friends were. The problem in this issue is that cyber bullying happens without restrictions, and anyone online can be a victim.

Criterion D – Solutions to problems arising from the issue One solution would be for governments to enforce new laws and policies that prevent people from posting negative content on the internet, such as South Carolina’s law that requires schools to define bullying and outline policies and repercussions for the behaviour, including cyberbullying ("States Pushing for Laws to Curb Cyberbullying."). Such behaviour could result to different punishments, depending on the level of inappropriateness. For example, a lesser punishment could be temporary suspension of the blog, while repeated behaviour could be a fine, or in extreme cases, imprisonment.

On the other hand, the efficiency of enforcing laws or policies is limited by the fact that it will be near impossible to find every single case of cyber bullying. If the policy was carried out by the blogging website itself (e.g. Xanga), the penalty would be less harsh and users could simply make new blogs. Additionally, enforcing laws online would mean that posted content would need to be managed.

As a result, people’s free speech rights could be infringed in the process.

(950 words, excluding biography and title page)

Works Cited Aftab, Parry. "STOP Cyberbullying." Stopcyberbullying.Org. Wired Safety Group. 3 Mar.

2008

<www.stopcyberbullying.org>.

"Blogging: Statistics and Demographics." Caslon Analytics. Caslon Analytics. 6 Mar. 2008 <http://www.caslon.com.au/weblogprofile1.htm>.

"Blogs." Wikipedia. 6 Mar. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_diary>.

"Cyber-Bullying:

Statistics

and

Tips."

I-SAFE

Inc.

I-SAFE.

6

Mar.

2008

<http://www.isafe.org/channels/sub.php?ch=op&sub_id=media_cyber_bullying>.

Hodson, Steve. "Stop Cyberbullying - Good Luck with That." Win Extra. 6 Mar. 2008 <http://www.winextra.com/2007/03/30/stop-cyberbullying-good-luck-with-that/>.

Jonsson, Patrik. "Teachers Strike Back At Student's Online Pranks." CS Monitor 25 Feb. 2008. 26 Feb. 2008 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0225/p01s02-usgn.html>.

"Scared

of

Cyberbullying?"

CBS

News

11

May

2004.

6

Mar.

2008

<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/11/earlyshow/living/parenting/main616717. shtml>.

"States Pushing for Laws to Curb Cyberbullying." FOX News 21 Feb. 2007. 6 Mar. 2008 <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,253259,00.html>.