...The Benefits of Playing Video Games Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C. M. E. Engels Radboud University Nijmegen Video games are a ubiquitous part of almost all children’s and adolescents’ lives, with 97% playing for at least one hour per day in the United States. The vast majority of research by psychologists on the effects of “gaming” has been on its negative impact: the potential harm related to violence, addiction, and depression. We recognize the value of that research; however, we argue that a more balanced perspective is needed, one that considers not only the possible negative effects but also the benefits of playing these games. Considering these potential benefits is important, in part, because the nature of these games has changed dramatically in the last decade, becoming increasingly complex, diverse, realistic, and social in nature. A small but significant body of research has begun to emerge, mostly in the last five years, documenting these benefits. In this article, we summarize the research on the positive effects of playing video games, focusing on four main domains: cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social. By integrating insights from developmental, positive, and social psychology, as well as media psychology, we propose some candidate mechanisms by which playing video games may foster real-world psychosocial benefits. Our aim is to provide strong enough evidence and a theoretical rationale to inspire new programs of research on the largely unexplored...
Words: 11200 - Pages: 45
...Video Games and Their Effect on Childhood Development: Exploratory Essay It is no surprise that in the digital age of today- many, if not most children have access to some form of video games. In fact, 48% of American households own some sort of device that can be used for gaming. These devices include computers, video game consoles, smartphones, wireless devices, and handheld gaming systems (Logfren). The number one selling game of 2017 thus far is Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, which is a tactical shooting game, number two is For Honor, a combat battle game, and holding on strong four years after initial release, Grand Theft Auto V- an action game based on three criminals, comes in at number seven (Morris). All three of the previously...
Words: 1487 - Pages: 6
...Neuron Perspective Children, Wired: For Better and for Worse Daphne Bavelier,1,* C. Shawn Green,2 and Matthew W.G. Dye3 of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA of Psychology, Center for Cognitive Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA 3Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA *Correspondence: daphne@bcs.rochester.edu DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.08.035 2Department 1Department Children encounter technology constantly at home and in school. Television, DVDs, video games, the Internet, and smart phones all play a formative role in children’s development. The term ‘‘technology’’ subsumes a large variety of somewhat independent items, and it is no surprise that current research indicates causes for both optimism and concern depending upon the content of the technology, the context in which the technology immerses the user, and the user’s developmental stage. Furthermore, because the field is still in its infancy, results can be surprising: video games designed to be reasonably mindless result in widespread enhancements of various abilities, acting, we will argue, as exemplary learning tools. Counterintuitive outcomes like these, besides being practically relevant, challenge and eventually lead to refinement of theories concerning fundamental principles of brain plasticity and learning. Introduction It is Monday morning at 7:58 a.m....
Words: 11099 - Pages: 45
...Importance of Eduactional Games According to AJ Martin (July 13, 2013) in his case study entitled “Video Games as a Part of Life” he stated that, “Some parents see video games as a brain-damaging waste of time, but recent studies show the opposite, video games help people, no wonder why they use it for rehab, training and just plain fun. It’s no secret that the Philippines is addicted to video games, in fact if you’re in a city in the Philippines, you can find an internet cafe within walking distance, and if you enter that internet cafe, there are bound to be teenagers there playing DotA or Counter-Strike or some other game. This isn’t a bad thing because it develops friendship, teamwork and the ability to socialize. According to Jason B. Almonte (June 22, 2011) in his case study entitled “Implementation of a digital game-based learning environment for elementary Education” he stated that, “Video games have gained high popularity nowadays that researchers have taken an interest in its use as an educational medium. Based on previous studies on educational game development, the project has developed video games for mobile handheld devices that cover Grade 6 Philippine Educational System Science curriculum topics. It aims to serve as a supplement to the student to further augment what they have learned inside the classroom and be able to use it in practical applications. It aims to offer aid for topics that are difficult to learn by students or difficult to teach for educators...
Words: 2758 - Pages: 12
...violence, but there have been several studies conducted to prove otherwise. Bittman, Rutherford, Brown, and Unsworth (2011), “negative impacts on children’s cognitive development and educational achievement have been associated with displacement of cognitively more valuable activities, especially in infancy (Anderson & Pempek, 2005) and early childhood” (Schmidt & Anderson, 20007). There has been so much focus on media that society has forgotten that age appropriate television works. Age-appropriate television increases language and development. Television and media are visual aids children learn from. It is hard to determine if a certain form of media causes the most violence. However, it has been proven that exposure to the media has been known to cause violent behavior, especially in the youth. Hundreds of these studies have been conducted, and they all seem to come back to the same conclusion. One analysis stated that media has been causing violence since as early as 1975. Violence in video games is the newest form of media violence. A recent study by Pew Research Center states 97 percent of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 plays some type of video games. No effects could be found on the advertisement of video games, but it was determined that the violence occurs from the content in the video games”. Graphic content, such as cursing and...
Words: 915 - Pages: 4
...Research on Educational Impact of Games A Literature Review Institute for Games for Learning NYU Education/Assessment Group CUNY Education/Assessment Group White Paper # 02/2009 Version 0.1 June 25, 2009 Florrie Ng Helen Zeng Jan L. Plass Gaming Literature Coding In response to researchers’ calls for more systematic investigations of the use of games for learning, we conducted an extensive literature review on this topic. By surveying prior research, we examined the themes that emerged, the methodology employed, and the findings yielded, the ultimate goal being to identify knowledge gaps in the literature. To this end, we reviewed the relevant research conducted in the last 15 years by following the procedures outlined below. (a) Using the widely used social science database PsycINFO, we searched for articles which focused on both games and learning. The keywords chosen were “gam*” and either “learn*”, “teach*”, or “educat*” (the wildcard * can stand for any of a defined subset of all possible characters; for example “gam*” includes “game,” “games,” “gaming,” etc.). This generated about 4000 peer-reviewed articles from the earliest date (i.e., before 1960) to the end of 2008. (b) Given that studies conducted a decade ago tended to be less rigorous methodologically or yield obsolete results, we decided to focus our attention on more recent research. Once we narrowed down the time period to the years of 1995 to 2008, about 2400 peer-reviewed articles were left in the...
Words: 6821 - Pages: 28
...over nature verses nurture and which one plays the larger role in human development and how they act. Nature is the genetics or hereditary influences of a person; basically nature is the genes you are born with that can’t be changed. Nurture is experiential or environmental influences that you develop over time after you are born, such as how your parents raise you which gives you a large variety to how you will act as you develop. The question is which one of these two determines what kind of person you are. Im going to try to give a better idea of the difference in nature and nurture. Lots of people believe nature plays the larger part. A person’s genes can determine whether a person is predisposed to a disease or illness for example people who are born with genetic disorder such as Down syndrome have trouble with information processing. Their mental hardware, which are cognitive structures including different memories where information is stored, and their mental software, which are organized sets of cognitive processes that enable people to complete specific takes like reading sentences, playing video games, or hitting a baseball. These things will ultimately effect the way they grow up and the way they see and do things. A person who is affected with those types of diseases shows how nature can directly effect the development of an individual. A new technique called developmental genetic analysis is a procedure that examines the effects of genes throughout a person’s life...
Words: 970 - Pages: 4
...Computer Game Addiction Stats and Research * Personality traits like trait anxiety, sensation seeking, neuroticism, and aggression appear to be related to the development of gaming addiction. Mehroof, M et al. (2010). Online gaming addiction: The role of sensation seeking, self-control, neuroticism, aggression, state anxiety, and trait anxiety. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13, 313-316. * Regions of the brain associated with cravings in substance abuse also appear to be activated in gaming addicts when they view images of video games. Ko, C. et al. (2009). Brain activities associated with gaming urge of online gaming addiction. Journal or Psychiatric Research, 43, 739-747. * There is a difference between "excessive gaming" and "addictive gaming". Two gamers may play for an identical number of hours each day, but their psychological motivation and the meaning that gaming has within their lives can be very different. Gaming addiction should be defined by how much the game negatively impacts others areas of life, not by how much time is spent playing. Griffiths, M et al. (2010). The role of context in online gaming excess and addiction: Some case study evidence. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 8, 119-125. * In a volunteer sample, 41% of online gamers acknowledged that they use gaming as an escape. In the same sample, 7% were viewed as "dependent". These gamers possessed several behavioral attributes that...
Words: 1030 - Pages: 5
...Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK; E-Mail: mark.griffiths@ntu.ac.uk * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: daria.kuss@ntu.ac.uk; Tel.: +44-789-111-94-90. Received: 28 June 2012; in revised form: 24 August 2012 / Accepted: 28 August 2012 / Published: 5 September 2012 Abstract: In the past decade, research has accumulated suggesting that excessive Internet use can lead to the development of a behavioral addiction. Internet addiction has been considered as a serious threat to mental health and the excessive use of the Internet has been linked to a variety of negative psychosocial consequences. The aim of this review is to identify all empirical studies to date that used neuroimaging techniques to shed light upon the emerging mental health problem of Internet and gaming addiction from a neuroscientific perspective. Neuroimaging studies offer an advantage over traditional survey and behavioral research because with this method, it is possible to distinguish particular brain areas that are involved in the development and maintenance of addiction. A systematic literature search was conducted, identifying 18 studies. These studies provide compelling evidence for the similarities between different types of addictions, notably substance-related addictions and Internet and gaming addiction, on a variety of levels. On the molecular level, Internet addiction is characterized by an overall reward deficiency that entails decreased dopaminergic...
Words: 14407 - Pages: 58
...and health concerns in child development 1 CHILDREN & TECHNOLOGY 2 The overuse of technology and health concerns in child development Technology is a remarkable achievement. It has surpassed the expectations of former inventors, physicists, and engineers, among them Nikola Tesla who predicted that mobile devices would soon be a reality (Popular Mechanics, 1909). Forward to present day and mobile devices are applied in almost every aspect of daily living. Mobile devices such as cell phones, tablets, and computers are common household items. The use of these devices serves a common purpose; efficiently complete tasks, whilst being productive. However, more often than not, technology’s use envelops its users. This is becoming more apparent in children who are maturing with technology at their fingertips. A developing child’s mind, in early stages of growth, is malleable making them more prone to develop a reliance on technology when such devices are given to them at such a young age. Reliance on technology can harm a developing child in mental, emotional, and physical aspects. The overuse of entertainment technology on a developing child raises health concerns. By fostering a mental, social, emotional, and physical foundation during child development, families can curtail the negative outcomes of technology overuse. Children and adolescents are constantly bombarded with large amounts of information. Internet, video games, Facebook, and TV play a major...
Words: 2015 - Pages: 9
...Through the technological development of electronic media and devices, access to entertainment media has become easier than ever before. In addition, these developments have led to an increase in the amount of time individuals spend watching and interacting with screen media, namely films, television and video games. As individuals in society display more aggressive behaviours in everyday life, researchers have endeavoured to identify the extent of how much violence portrayed in the media affects an individual’s thought, feelings and behaviours. While there is still debate as to whether there is a casual link between media and aggression, or that engaging with it maybe be cathartic, it has become evident that exposure to violence portrayed in the media can have short-term and long-term effects. This literature report will concentrate on reports and research focused on the influence of different types of media on aggression and the levels that these can be interpreted psychologically. Influences of Different Media on Aggression Exposure to violent media and the effect that this can have on an individual has been a topic that has interested researchers and society alike for decades. The likelihood of aggressive behaviour, thoughts and emotions is increased with short-term exposure to violent video games and films. (MVC 2012:337; Anderson 2004:2). Reasons provided for this increase by the Media Violence Commission (2012:337-8) and Myers (2013:378) is neural processes known...
Words: 1034 - Pages: 5
...bs_bs_banner Journal of Applied Social Psychology 2013, 43, pp. 1862–1868 The changing face of aggression: the effect of personalized avatars in a violent video game on levels of aggressive behavior Jack Hollingdale1, Tobias Greitemeyer2 1 2 University of Sussex, UK University of Innsbruck, Austria Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jack Hollingdale, University of Sussex, Pevensey Building, Brighton, BN1 9RH, UK. E-mail: j.hollingdale@sussex.ac.uk doi: 10.1111/jasp.12148 Abstract Video game developments allow players to design their own personalized avatars. Previous research has shown that this capability increases levels of aggression within socially acceptable forms of violence. Using the general aggression model (GAM), the current study examined the effect of avatar personalization on behavioral aggression within a violent video game. Participants who played a violent video game and designed their own avatars were significantly more aggressive than those who played the same violent video game with a generic avatar, and were also more aggressive than those who played the nonviolent video game, regardless of whether or not they designed their own personalized characters. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed. Games present opportunities to behave in ways that are exhilaratingly wicked and dangerous—out of reach in real life. Freedom from consequences, and hence a feeling of escaping, is...
Words: 5200 - Pages: 21
...Although technology has paved the way for a newly incorporated society, questions remain about its effects of media on humanity. Social Media Violence, Video Game Controversies. Child Development, Mental Health, and Youth Behavior have all been concerns pertaining to the convenience of our peer groups. The world’s common persona is perceived as though big media affects teenage decisions, their standards of appearance and personality, communication, and the advantages and disadvantages of their lifestyle. The 21st century Media contains elements that could obtain either a positive or negative influence on our younger generation. As you all know, Social Media portrays violence indirectly and directly through common platforms used by today’s youth. A local newscast entitled “ABC News” aired a story where they interviewed a Chicago citizen who revealed how sites were used to promote violence. For Example, Gangs use sites to produce threats against others and rival gangs or as an opportunity for membership openings. Deaths and violent operations have been caused because of these brutal acts. Also, Meta-analyses of these baleful results of violent media prove that youth who observe these types of media have ranging anti-social behaviors. According to the Social Cognitive...
Words: 747 - Pages: 3
...Applied Developmental Psychology 22 (2001) 7 ± 30 The impact of computer use on children's and adolescents' development Kaveri Subrahmanyama,*, Patricia Greenfieldb, Robert Krautc, Elisheva Grossb a Child and Family Studies, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032, USA b University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA c Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Abstract In recent years, electronic games, home computers, and the Internet have assumed an important place in our lives. This paper presents a review of the research on the impact of home computer use on the development of children and adolescents. Time use data are presented along with a discussion of factors such as age, gender, and ethnicity, which impact the time spent on computers as well as the activities engaged in. Research on the impact of computer use on cognitive skill and academic development, social development and relationships, and perceptions of reality and violent behavior is reviewed. The special role of the Internet in the lives of adolescents is brought out using data from the HomeNet study. The paper concludes with recommendations for future study in order to better understand the growing impact of computers on our youth. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Children; Computers; Internet I really want to move to Antarctica Ð I'd want my cat and Internet access and I'd be happy. ±16 year old HomeNet participant...
Words: 13031 - Pages: 53
...behaviors emerges in children and adults pertains to ADHD (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, pp. 64-65). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder disrupts the process of learning in children as well as others in the classroom, home, and the workplace. Often, children demonstrating these behaviors are impetuous and reckless thereby disruptive in activities at home, school, and play whereby hindering the child’s or adult’s abilities to learn and perform. This paper will provide an explication of ADHD and the common symptoms along with the rates of managing, and reducing the symptoms implemented in three treatments in methods selected in treating the disorder. Furthermore, an analysis will explicate the neurophysiological underpinnings, and contemporary attitudes of the selected interventions video games, family therapy, and Ritalin. Cause and characteristics of ADHD The symptoms of ADHD affect three to five percent of children in the United States that serves as the leading cause of underachievement as well as school failures (Parksepp, 1998). In the past the disorder incurred numerous labels “such as,” hyperkinetic reaction, hyperactive syndrome, attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, and a minimal dysfunction of the brain. Males “in contrast,” to females because of underdiagnosing are more likely to endure ADHD symptoms. Nevertheless, the disorder focuses more on controlling impulses rather than attention (Seminar notes Barkley). Although the causes are unknown...
Words: 2670 - Pages: 11
