Why among us is a bad influence on teenagers?
CAN AMONG US HARM TEENAGERS MENTALLY?
Among Us is an online social deduction game where the majority of players take on the role of crewmates, working together to complete tasks in different space settings like a spaceship or base. Among the crewmates, three imposters try to stop others from completing their tasks by sabotaging and killing them by drawing unique strategies. The imposters should also be able to camouflage along with others to avoid getting caught. Crewmates must try to stay alive and correctly identify the impostor(s) via emergency meetings, where they can discuss why they think a certain player is or is not the impostor. Each crewmate has a unique colored jumpsuit. The developers have not included any voice chat facility to maintain the player’s anonymity. Hence, no one speaks until a meeting is called. Meetings are called on two occasions: when a dead body is reported or manually by pressing the red switch in the cafeteria. Once, the meetings have been summoned, the players are allowed to discuss and debate potential suspects and have the option to vote off a crewmate. The crewmate who receives the maximum number of votes is invariably ejected out to space. If he/she turns out to be the imposter, the win ratio increases for the remaining crewmates but if he/she turns out to be no suspect, an innocent member is lost. Conversely, the victory goes to the impostors if they've managed to kill off enough crewmates without being detected.
Among Us has become
one of Twitch's most streamed games and has accumulated over 400,000 Steam
players as of September 2020. The production company InnerSloth initially
planned a sequel to this game but later canceled the project and decided to
focus on the current form of the game and bring in more updates in form of new
tasks and more maps.
The game's cartoon style makes it feel like it is good for any age, but it is primarily geared at young teenagers and up. While the game doesn’t affect the psyche of any person but there is always a chance of children getting exposed to strong languages or behavior in the game’s chat system. The game has a manual setup where anyone can make their custom game, deciding the number of imposters, tasks, maps, and lots of other things. Doing so they generate a unique ID which when shared with friends and relatives, they can join the game. The killings and sabotage graphics are not so tempting, especially in the world where we have anime like Naruto and Dragon ball-Z. They involve much more gore and strong content than Among Us. The game is completely harmless and no way can make someone aggressive or anxious. But, despite having a simple JAVA-scripted design why should we keep teenagers away from this game? The answer to this question lies at the core climatic part of the game: the chat system.
It needs to be understood that when the players are discussing, trying to figure out the imposter, they indulge in a “blame game” rather than a “guess game”- where the imposter tries to hide by being dishonest and blaming someone else. The reason why Among Us had been described as “a social deduction game” is because players need to convince others that they are not the imposter despite being totally honest about this fact. In a society where the majority of us are suffering from mental health-related problems, games like Among Us drives to insanity. This game questions the morale of the players and how much do they trust each other. It makes us believe the fact that being right is not enough, you need to convince people so they could trust you. In close friend circles, this could prove harmful and break many friendships. Now, considering teenagers- young, fragile, and aggressive- they could be deeply hurt when wrongly accused of being the imposter. It is similar to any legal case where the innocent is being presented as guilty and imprisoned. While it should be necessarily understood that it is just a videogame, teenagers need not take it seriously and end up breaking relationships. However, this little fact brings in the whole circle of child psychology along with the possibility of developing behavioral issues such as introverts, depression, and aggression.
If you are suffering from bipolar disorder,
autism spectrum disorder, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or
depression episodes, you need to avoid playing this game unless you have a good
friend circle who understand your problem and are careful with you. Luckily,
there had been no cases reported due to this game but it won’t take much time
before things get out of control.
ALSO, READ PUBG ban: 21-year-old kills himself as he
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Another aspect of the game that draws a certain amount of concern is the way the imposter approaches every kill. The game features certain features that the imposter can take to his/her own advantage and build up the strategies to effectively gain kills without raising suspicion and maintain the camouflage. While the game tests the players' intelligence on how they lure around the corners and sabotage each crewmate, at the same time it gives certain creative ways of trapping, torturing, or misleading each character as the game roles. For example, by sabotaging the electricity i.e. cutting out the power, the visibility of the players decreases which the imposter takes account of to kill crewmates without getting caught. This might appear potentially harmless. However, the depiction of such strategies may brew up violent attempts in the mind of teenagers. It is undeniable that other games such as Assassin’s Creed series, Call of Duty and other similar games do not have the same effect. In fact, they portray an immense amount of gore and violence. However, with the rapidity Among Us has spread among various age groups, it has a better chance of influencing younger minds than those platform-specific games.
The chances might appear low at this point in
time but it is never zero. Also with the increment in the number of suicidal
cases, we should be careful as to what the children are exposed to. Parental
caring must be at a peak during this time of the year. Behavioral issues due
to video games are not a new thing up the horizon, therefore, we must monitor
the mental health and notice any behavioral changes among children,
especially teenagers.
Copywrite: Everything you read has been written by me (Bindeswar Saha) unless stated otherwise. If you have an inquiry, contact me at bindeswarstudent@gmail.com. The images have been taken from Google images and have been used for reference purposes only.
References: The above article couldn’t have been possible without help
from the following articles, informational writings, and news headlines.
https://screenrant.com/among-us-safe-kids-appropriate-children-violent-rating/
https://www.verywellmind.com/a-list-of-psychological-disorders-2794776
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