Cameron S.

Reed

Jean Coco

English 1001

4 April 2018

Audience: the people that play games and want to see possible problems and benefits. Also,

those who believe playing video games is a problem and detrimental to one’s mental health.

Video Games and the Mind

In the new age, gamers tend to be shown in a bad light amongst the older crowds. In

recent times games are blamed on younger people’s behavior and actions. But what are the

effects of playing video games, what happens to someone who plays video games often? Some

studies done in the past have shown that right after playing a violent game the player can be

more aggressive, but this type of testing is flawed because it was only in a half hour time frame

that they were tested. More recent studies are showing much more interesting findings.

There have been very few studies done on the topic of video games and the assumption

that violent games cause a person to be outwardly violent in the real world. A study done by

Simone, Kuhn called “The Myth of Blunted Gamers: No Evidence for Desensitization in

Empathy for Pain After a Violent Video Game Intervention in a Longitudinal FMRI Study on
Non-Gamers” is one such study that looks at the effect of video games over a long period of

time. The study had three groups of people, one not playing a game, another playing the Sims 3,

and one playing Grand Theft Auto. After this study was done they had concluded that there was

no correlation between violent games and people’s outward emotion in the real world. Recently

people, including president Donald J. Trump, have pined violent crimes done by younger people

on violent games and media and this topic was explored in Terence Hines "Virtual Violence: A

Review of Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong”. This type of

thinking was proven to be un-factual after seeing the results of these newer studies

Benefits of Video Games

In an article written by Isabela Granic she talks about some benefits of playing video

games. She challenged the notion that games are just for fun and you get nothing from playing

them. She says in her article, “Contrary to conventional beliefs that playing video games is

intellectually lazy and sedating, it turns out that playing these games promotes a wide range of

cognitive skills.” People don’t just turn off their brain when they play a video game. And you

can actually get tired from playing them, just like if you study really hard or take a difficult test

and you get a head ack from thinking hard, the same thing could happen playing a video game.

When playing a game, you get mentally involved and could pick up some skills from playing

that game. This is the reason schools are using more games to teach younger kids, its more

interesting and you learn quickly from them.

there are many cognitive skills that can be taken away from playing video games. And

this was my and many others thought even before seeing the studied results. Gamers like myself
believe games are a great pass time and have even taken some skills from the virtual world into

the real one. There was one study done by Matthew Barr, where they wanted to see if playing

video games improved specific skills. They had a control group and a tested group; the tested

group had selected several games from a list of recommendations and played them over an eight-

week period. in the conclusion of their study they found that video games improved the

communication skills, teamwork, and the adaptability of the tested group. “Chief among these

factors, based on participant interviews, is the simple fact that multiplayer video games require

players to communicate in order to succeed.” (Matthew Barr) par.39 and this is the main reason

people would experience the increase in ability to effectively communicate to people to perform

a task.

My brother and I have played video games of all kinds since we were around the age of

four. We played violent games and rather cartoony games but none of them, in our opinion,

made us outwardly aggressive people. I did an interview with some of my friends that play

games quite often and both my brother and two friends believe games improved their cognitive

thinking, decision making, and team/social skills. After asking my brother, “Has there been a

moment where you realized a game made you better at something in the real world?” and he

responded, “Yes definitely, playing MMO (massive multiplayer online) games helped me with

communication skills, you have to communicate with people from all over the world. And that

helped me with real world interactions.”

After asking my friends the same question I realized we all have the almost the same

answers for each question. No one said that games did anything bad for them. Though the

thought that games make you a violent person is incorrect there are some bad things that can
come of playing video games. Game are very addictive and some people with addictive

personality’s may be stuck playing one game all day for days or weeks at a time. This kind of

thing has happed and though it is relatively rare it is a problem everyone should avoid. People

should make sure that when playing games for extended periods of time to get up and move

around and take breaks.

Video Games and Violence

Some people believe that playing violent games makes you a more violent person. There

have been very few real studies done on this topic and its typically hear say when someone says

that a kid committed a crime because of a video game. I personally have played many violent

video games and I do to this day, but none of them had made me want to go out and hurt another

person. This is true for almost every gamer, there are instances where a person with mental

problems or someone that is already violent plays a game and they become more violent because

of it. But playing a game does not inherently make a person more violent or aggressive.

Less recent studies that were done on the topic of video games and violence were all

conducted in the same manner. Over a short period of time and tested for a short period of time,

this was a very faulty way of testing and limited the possibility of more results. More recent

studies that are being done on the topic are being conducted over an extended period and tested

longer after playing the games. Thus, giving much stronger evidence in the results. “Our

longitudinal interventional study design allows us to draw causal conclusions and does not show

any evidence for a desensitization effect in brain signal during empathy for pain” Simon Kuhn

par 25. People that play video games don’t just change their personality and become violent and

people don’t loose their empathy for other form playing a video game. these are parts of people
personality’s that are already there, and they just so happen to like playing video games, which is

highly likely considering 99% of boys, and 94% of girls play video games today.

Real world application of video games

Though there are broad benefits to playing video games some would say that it has no

real use and you could do other things with your time. But video games aren’t just fun and have

some other benefits to playing them. One study was done to see if it could cure people with

amblyopia (known as “lazy eye”). They had adults with amblyopia wear an eyepatch over their

good eye and play forty hours of action video games and the results were amazing. “the action

game group improved dramatically: some amblyopes became completely normal (i.e., their

vision returned to 20/20 or better)” Adam Eichenbaum par 41 and before this was done doctors

said that it was irreversible once past a certain age in childhood to fix a lazy eye.

Fixing amblyopia isn’t the only thing, “video games have become an effective means of

fighting off the cognitive decline seen with normal aging” Adam Eichenbaum par 42 this could

also possibly slow the onset of Alzheimer’s. keeping your mind strong with regular usage

through video games could be of great benefit and a great mind workout. “specific video game

could teach cognitive shifting” Jocelyn Parong, people could use specific games to train parts of

their brain that they want if their lacking in a certain area. Video games could be an amazing way
to train yourself and a great pass time. If you don’t spend too much time in a virtual world you

will be fine.

To Conclude

If you are an avid gamer, don’t be discouraged if someone tells games are useless. There

are many reason you can be proud of playing games, and if you are someone that puts others

down for playing video games I hope you know now that it’s not a waste of time. Video games

are the future, they’ve grown from simple toys to full blown machines in about twenty years and

they will continue to grow. So knowing what can come of playing them could be somewhat of a

relief to those who choose to play. Video games for myself and many others is a way to bond

with family and friends and to some is just a fast way to past the time but knowing that it is even

more then mindless fun makes it that much more important to me and I’m sure to many others.
 Simone, Kühn, et al. "The Myth of Blunted Gamers: No Evidence for Desensitization in

Empathy for Pain After a Violent Video Game Intervention in a Longitudinal Fmri Study on

Non-Gamers." Neurosignals, Vol 26, Iss 1, Pp 22-30 (2018), no. 1, 2018, p. 22. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1159/000487217.

Granic, Isabela, et al. "The Benefits of Playing Video Games." American

Psychologist, vol. 69, no. 1, n.d., pp. 66-78. EBSCOhost,

libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-

com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edswss&AN=000331802400004&site=eds-

live&scope=site&profile=eds-main.

Barr, Matthew. "Student Attitudes to Games-Based Skills Development: Learning from

Video Games in Higher Education." Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 80, Mar. 2018, pp.

283-294. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.11.030.

Eichenbaum, Adam, et al. "Video Games: Play That Can Do Serious Good."

American Journal of Play, vol. 7, no. 1, 01 Sept. 2014, pp. 50-72. EBSCOhost,

libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-

com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1043955&site=eds-

live&scope=site&profile=eds-main.

Hines, Terence. "Virtual Violence: A Review of Moral Combat: Why the War on

Violent Video Games Is Wrong. By Patrick M. Markey and Christopher J. Ferguson." Skeptic

(Altadena, CA), no. 4, 2017, p. 62. EBSCOhost, libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login?url=https://search-

ebscohostcom.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgbc&AN=edsgcl.520714011&sit

e=eds-live&scope=site&profile=eds-main.