Good, Better, Video Games
Dakota Boyd
ITT Technical Institute

Over the past twenty years or so there has been much controversy regarding whether video games are good or bad for children and adults. I believe that video games have many physical and mental factors about them that are beneficial. This can range from helping with cataracts to even helping with depression. Video games are a tool that has not yet been utilized to its full potential and not just for entertainment.
A Professor named Daphe Bavelier who works at the University of Rochester studies brain and cognitive sciences. She conducts studies on young people who play action video games. Bavelier says, “It turns out that action video games are far from mindless.” Her studies show that video gamers who played action video games showed improved skills in vision, attention, and certain aspects in regards to cognition (Trudeau 2010).
German researchers conducted an experiment to help better understand how video games affect the brain. They asked 23 adults around the age of 25 to play “Super Mario 64” for 30 minutes a day over a period of two months. They then had a separate control group which did not play video games at all. Then they examined the brains of the two groups using an MRI machine, which resulted in them finding that the group who played the video game had a rise in gray matter in the right hippocampus, right prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. These areas of the brain are responsible for spatial navigation, memory formation, strategic planning, and good motor skills with the hands. This study helped to establish a direct link between video games and an increase in brain activity (Guarini 2013)
In August of 2013 British researchers found that certain strategic video games such as “Starcraft” can increase brain flexibility. The scientists described this as “a cornerstone of human intelligence.” The study was conducted at Queen Mary University of London and the University College London. It was based on psychological tests that had been conducted before and included 72 volunteers that played either “Starcraft” or “The Sims” for 40 hours over six and eight weeks. The researchers found that the group who played “Starcraft” experienced growth in their performance on psychological tests and completed cognitive flexibility tasks with greater speed and accuracy (Guarini 2013) Trudeau (2010) also informs us that Bavelier believes vision is improved in gamers specifically the kind of vision called contrast sensitivity. This type of vision is ability to see indirect shades of grey. Contrast sensitivity comes in handy when you are driving in fog. Seeing the car ahead of you is determined by this type of vision. Not only can video gamers see shades of grey better but they also are able to see smaller font size than non-gamers on vision tests.
Daphne Maurer, director of Visual Development Lab at McMaster University of Ontario, made the headlines in 2012 with her research. She suggested that people who were born with cataracts could improve their eyesight by playing the “first-person shooter” video game. The reason why this helped was because it required the user to focus on multiple points at once, since enemies could be coming from anywhere, as opposed to them just having to focus on a single point. The game is also fast paced which makes the brain work harder and causes dopamine levels to rise. The game also causes you to interact with it so combining vision and motor skills which caused it to be more effective (Dreifus 2012). A brain researcher at the University of Toronto named Jay Pratt has studied differences between men and women regarding their ability to mentally control 3-D figures. Spatial cognition is that this skill is called and it is an essential mental ability used for math and engineering. Pratt has found out that woman test significantly worse than men on tests of spatial recognition. However, Pratt found that women who have played action video games even a little caused the gender difference to nearly disappear. He trained the woman for 10 hours and then brought them back to the lab to give them the test again. The women had improved significantly and almost caught up to the men in scores (Trudeau 2010). Another Professor of phycology, at Michigan State University, named Linda Jackson conducted some studies of her own regarding the creativity in video gamers and non-video gamers The study consisted of nearly 500 12 year olds, and showed that the kids who played video games more the more creative they were in things such as drawing pictures and writing stories (Eurekalert.org 2011). Video games aren’t necessarily just important in the sense of how they help us with brain activity of physical exercise, but another huge reason that video games are beneficial for you are because they make you feel good. A survey was conducted where video games were asked what kind of emotions they felt while playing video games. Here are some of the answers: bliss, relief, personal satisfaction, emotional connection, surprise, curiosity, excitement, awe (McGonigal 2012)
The thing that makes these emotions special is that video games can activate them whenever they want just by playing with a certain friend online or playing a certain game. If a gamer is upset or angry or scared they can feel these positive emotions just by playing a video game. Some children prior to surgery are able to suppress their anxiety just by playing a handheld video game. Soldiers in Afghanistan are able to reduce psychological stress by nearly 75% by playing a video game for three to four hours a day (McGonigal 2012).
In 2011 Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, created a new idea that summarized all of the major scientific findings on happiness and well-being. He called this idea PERMA which stands for: Positive Emotions, Engagement with challenging work and activities that require us to use our person strengths, Relationships or strong social connection, Meaning or sense of being a part of something larger than ourselves, and Accomplishment or the chance to learn, get better and achieve. When asking yourself if a video game can provide each one of these then you can tell how much happier the game will make you. For instance if a game only yields one or two yes’s then you know it won’t fulfill your needs as much but if it yields all yes’s then you know that the game will ultimately make you happy. Seligman says that “Our quality of life is determined by how much PERMA we can create for ourselves” (McGonigal 2012). A lot of people, mainly concerned parents, believe that gun violence is related to video games. However, there isn’t any real evidence to support this connection. Americans spend billions of dollars every year on video games and the United States has the highest firearm murder rate in the developed world. Yet, other where video games are also very popular and widely used have much lower firearm related murder. In fact, countries where video games consumption is highest tend to be some of the safest countries in the world. If there was a direct link between the two then the data would trend upward meaning that violence would have increased in the other countries as well (Fisher 2012).
In conclusion I still believe that video games are extremely beneficial both emotionally and physically. Whether it’s helping with cataracts or helping a child get through a rough time video games do help. They do have many good things about them and in my opinion they most certainly out way the bad. So next time your child or spouse is playing video games remember that in might in fact be helping them out and not rotting their brain.
Reference Page 1. Dreifus, C. (2012, August 27). How Video Games Could Improve Our Vision. Retrieved November 12, 2014. 2. Fisher, M. (2012, December 17). Little or No Link Between Video Games and Gun Murders. Retrieved November 12, 2014. 3. Guarini, D. (2013, November 7). 9 Ways Video Games Can Actually Be Good For You. Retrieved November 12, 2014. 4. McGonigal, J. (2012, October 15). How Might Video Games Be Good for Us? Retrieved November 20, 2014. 5. Trudeau, M. (2010, December 15). Video Games Boost Brain Power, Multitasking Skills. Retrieved November 20, 2014. 6. Video game playing tied to creativity. (2011, November 11). Retrieved November 20, 2014, from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/msu-vgp110211.php