The Positive Effects of Video Games

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Ben Griffes ENGL 1202-003 15 October 2013

Video games often get a bad rap. Everyone thinks that they will rot your brain, make you go blind, turn you into a mass murderer, and are just a general waste of time. Well what if I was to tell you that everybody is dead wrong. Being a gamer myself this is something I come across all the time, mostly from those outside the gaming community about how much of a waste of time it is. Recent studies all across the country are proving that video games in reasonable doses are not only, not bad for us, but they can be extremely good for us, and make us happier more effective adults. Thats right, adults, video games are not just for kids. The focus of my paper is to show very specific results from scientific research to show non gamers, that games could be incredibly beneficial to themselves and society as a whole. In gathering information on this topic, I will be drawing upon my own knowledge and experiences with games. The research I found was split into two main categories, the skills and physical benefits of video games, and the application and effects in the real world. Figuring out how video games affect us and the skills that we build and enhance by playing video games is a very important aspect, and something that is very widely researched. Daphne Bavelier who is a neuro scientist from Geneva Switzerland. Her main focus is the study of video games on the brain. James Paul Gee, a well renowned academic and author, also discusses how video games teach us life skills, and which ones they usually convey. Luke Reilly of IGN.com also discusses a list of skills video games help us develop. Jane McGonigal, who has a PhD in Performance Studies from University of California at Berkley, and is a groundbreaking game designer. She is the director of the Institute of the Future, which is trying to develop games and harness gamers to solve real world problems like the energy crisis, pollution and other things. Paul Adachi in this article presents the argument that video games are very good for students. The article by mda.gov talks about how the US military
Comment [B3]: Develop once Comment [B2]: Change to Switzerland, whose main focus

is using video games to help train officers. James Paul Gee also discusses how video games help students by given them experience with the topic they study. Snoddgrass does extensive research on how playing World of Warcraft, can be both beneficial and detrimental to us. But he focuses on the impact it has on us socially, and the difference between playing with real life friends, and just playing with people we do not know offline. So how do video games actually benefit us from a mental and physical standpoint? First it is important to understand that video games are not just for children, in fact the average age of a gamer is 33 years old! Dr. Bavelier states that [Video games] help our brains become smarter better and stronger. 1Video games are pervasive throughout our society, everyone plays video games now, especially with the explosion of smart phones and tablets in the past 5 years. Bevelier presents an interesting statistic. Activision, the creator of Call of Duty Black Ops, reported that one month after release that the game had been collectively played for over 68,000 years, worldwide.2 In reasonable doses, like everything else because binging is never good, action packed shooter games have powerful beneficial effects. For example video games are proven to in fact make your eyesight better. Not just your eyesight but you depth perception as well, which could be used to help people with a lazy eye 3. The average eyesight of a nongamer is corrected to normal or 20-20. They average eyesight of someone who plays 15 hours of video games per week, is 20-104. Gamers can resolve small detail in the context of clutter, such as reading fine print, or resolving different levels of gray, such as determining different
Comment [B4]: Consider rephrasing this sentence.

1 2 3

Bavelier, Daphne Your Brain on Video Games

Ibid

Reilly, Luke. IGN 4 Bavelier, Daphne Your Brain on Video Games

levels of fog. One common misconception is that games lead to attention problems and greater distractibility, this is false. It can improve our attention levels and our ability to focus, this can be tested by the word color game, where a word of a color will appear, such as yellow, but the ink color, will be red, and the conflict to resolve is saying the color of the ink, not the actual word. Gamers have better spatial awareness, meaning that they can track the objects around them better, than non-gamers. Like in driving, you have to be aware of everything around you, gamers can keep track of the dog in the yard, the lady pushing a stroller, and the kid on his bike, as well as the car in front of you and that the light just turned yellow, better than non-gamers. Brain imaging is used to look at the impact of video games on the brain. The main changes are to the brain networks that control attention. There are three main parts of the brain that control attention, first is the parietal cortex, which controls the orientation of attention, the frontal lobe which controls how sustain attention, the other is the anterior cingulate, which controls how we allocate and regulate attention and resolve conflict. When brain imaging is done on players of action video games, it is clear that the networks in these parts of the brain are much stronger than of those in non-gamers5. Another study was done to see how well people multitask which is really just shifting your attention from one thing to another. Gamers have a substantially better reaction time, and can completely switch focus and attention very swiftly. This group was put up against a more revered group in society the multimedia-tasking group. These are those who are listing to music, surfing the web, doing homework and chatting on Facebook all at the same time. This

Bavelier, Daphne Your Brain on Video Games

group performed abysmally at multitasking. With this point it is important to state that not all multimedia or even video games are created equally. Different video games have different effects on the brain. A study was done on the effect of action video games on non gamers, as to replicate the results of an educational or rehabilitational application, they were asked to do mental rotation problems, and they performed much better after playing 10 hours of video games over a two week period, and were then tested again after 5 months, and they scored very similarly, coming to the conclusion that video games can have positive long lasting results. The article on MDA.gov provides a very concise list of the potential benefits of video games. Advantages of Video Games: a. Offer the potential to foster creativity; b. Provide a fun and social form of entertainment; c. Make kids feel comfortable with technology; d. Increase children' s self-confidence and self-esteem as they master games; e. Develop skills in reading, math and problem-solving; f. Promote pro-social behaviours, such as helping and caring; g. Teach eye-hand coordination and visual spatial ability; h. An important medium for self-directed learning, health promotion and disease management; i. Facilitate language development in autistic children and
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j. Provide play therapy for inhibited children. 6

All of these are very common and important skills that video games teach, and they often happen in an almost unintentional way. James Paul Gee discusses how games, although not usually created to be educational in nature, are in fact very educational. They cause us to think, to plan out, to fail and to re-think and re-work the problems presented to us. Gee outlines the life skills that good games should relate to us and help us learn. He talks about how games help us learn outside of school, and help us perform better. How could video games be implemented better in the academic community, and how would that effect the performance of students?

Gee talks about his first real experience with video games and how it opened his mind and expanded his perspective about the possibilities that video games could have,

I wanted to play the game so I could support Sams[Gees son] problem solving. Though Pajama Sam is not an educational game, it is replete with the types of problems psychologists study when they study thinking and learning. As I confronted the game I was amazed. It was hard, long, and complex. I failed many times and had to engage in a virtual research project via the Internet to learn some of things I needed to know. All my Baby-Boomer ways of learning and thinking didnt work. I felt myself using learning muscles that hadnt had this much of a workout since my graduate school days in theoretical linguistics.7

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Author unknown. Video Games and their effects on Children Gee, J.P Good Video Games and Good Learning

One of the reasons video games make such great teachers and help us learn so well, is because they are challenging and engaging, if they werent people wouldnt buy them. If they werent doable and learnable they wouldnt be very popular either. We as human beings actually do enjoy learning, it is in our nature to learn, we as a society have just gone about learning the wrong way, or have evolved out of our current system of education. Another reason that video games are so effective at helping us learn, is that they are interactive, we dont just learn the facts to pass the test, we apply the principles and put them into use, and in doing so not only learn the what, but also the how. We dont just learn the answers to the biology test, we can actually do biology and get a full comprehension of what the subject matter is. Gee outlines 16 learning principles that games incorporate. While I will not go into depth about each of these here, Gee provides very clear definitions for each of these terms in his article, we can deduce from the names of some of these how games could teach us these skills better than other ways. 1. Identity 2. Interaction 3. Production 4. Risk Taking 5. Customization 6. Agency 7. Well-order problems 8. Challenge and consolidation 9. Just in Time or On Demand information 10. Situated Meanings 11. Pleasant Frustration

12. System Thinking 13. Lateral Thinking, Explore options, Rethink goals 14. Smart Tools and Distributed Knowledge 15. Cross Functional Teams 16. Performance before competence

Video games work just like books to help us learn. They have the same literacy qualities as other things. When we play video games socially, there is much more going on than just the game. We learn how to use cross functional teams. Every member of the team is an expert in their field, but has to be able to understand the other skill sets in the team just as well as your own. World of Warcraft is a great example of this. Games are only half the picture. Affinity space where the game creates the interest, and then the player goes out into the internet and researches and delves into the topic. Portal uses physics, and there is a certain set of physical laws, which are based on our own laws of physics, and there is a whole wiki based on describing and understanding these laws of physics. Games provide us with an opportunity to learn, they give us real experience with life things. He says that a kid, who plays Portal for hours and hours, is more likely to succeed in physics, than a kid who has never played Portal, given that there are no other variables. Its like reading the manual before you play the game, it makes no sense at all, but once you play the game, it manual makes sense, you have lived in that world, been given images and experiences that you can associate with the words in the text, unlike before, they were just technical terms that had no real meaning. If you brought the activities the problem solving, the living in the world of chemistry and algebra making kids want to do
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things with them. To see them as tools to surmise to poss ibilities, thats the game. If we brought those to school, they would like is as much as Portal.8

So all of this talk of learning and how video games can help us learn better brings us to our next topic of conversation, how do video games apply to the real world. Talk is great but, do they actually have real life applications and effects? In the study conducted by Paul Adachi he concludes the following The first analysis revealed that adolescents who played strategic video games across many years of high school also reported steeper increases in self- reported problem solving skills over time compared to participants who reported less sustained play. Next, we found support for cognitive training effects in that greater frequency of strategic video game play in grade 11 predicted greater self-reported problem solving skills in grade 12, after controlling for previous levels of self-reported problem solving skills. While he later concludes that there is an indirect relationship between these findings and academic grades, he states that the likelihood of the events being correlated in some way is high.

The Army of the United States of America has even begun to harness the power of learning through video games. Both Singapore and the US army modified available video games to hone the strategic and decision-making skills of officers. The US army version was also released into the mass market.9 Americas Army is a game designed by the U.S. Army mainly as a recruiting tool, but has developed itself into a training tool as well, because of the accuracy

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Gee, J.P.. "James Paul Gee on Learning with Video Games Author unknown. Video Games and their effects on Children

and design of the game; the gamers can be put inside realistic simulations that are developed to be as real as possible. Inside such a simulation, soldiers can train on foot or in mock-ups of vehicles and aircraft. They wear vests with audio systems embedded in them that send out signals to the simulations location system, enabling a virtual player to interact with the live player and vice versa.

Video games are all about solving problems in the environment we are in. How can we spend that time solving the worlds problems? We spend 3 million hours a week worldwide playing video games. World of Warcraft, has been played for a collective 5.93 million years from 2002 to 2010. To put that into perspective, the first known upright human being was, about 6 million years ago. By the age of 21 the average person plays 10,000 hours of video games, the same amount of time spent in school from the 5th grade to high school graduation. Malcolm Gladwell, a distinguished author, wrote that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of meaningful involved study to become a virtuoso at something. That means the world is running around with video game virtuosos. But what exactly are gamers getting good at? McGonigal suggests four main ideas. Urgent optimism, which is extreme self-motivation, the desire to act immediately combined with the thought that we have a reasonable hope of success. Social Fabric, gamers are becoming virtuosos at weaving a tight social fabric. Its the idea of friends who play together stay together. Gamers are more adept at building trusting relationships with people, especially other gamers, than non-gamers. Blissful Productivity, in games we are actually happier working hard, then we are just relaxing or doing nothing. Epic meaning, the realization that you are vital and important, its why most video games take place on

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a human planetary scale, such as saving the world from an alien invasion, or saving the galaxy, and you are the main protagonist. World of Warcraft is an environment where you are constantly on the verge of an epic win which is a success, where you thought no success was possible. You are also given constant feedback of leveling up or getting +1 strength or +1 intelligence. We dont get that in real life, we dont go to class and then walk out and see that we got +5 intelligence for that day, or finish a semester and level up. Thats why we often find ourselves getting so enthralled in these virtual environments, its so satisfying that it can become better than real life. We often find ourselves being better online than in real life. We feel we can achieve more in games than in real life. Games are an escape from the real world, from real world problems and suffering. So what does all of this mean? How is any of this positive? Well right now its all just potential, untapped potential. McGonigal has created games, which force users to solve the hypothetical problems of the future, such as oil shortages, pollution, and other things that could threaten our planet in the future. She is adamant that if we work towards tapping the potential of these virtuosos, that we can solve the worlds problems in the future.
Comment [B7]: Comedy is good for this paper, keeps the reader engaged and interested

So does this mean that we are supposed to burn every textbook in school and throw away all our medicine and never visit the eye doctor again, and just play video games instead? Of course not, video games are meant as a supplement and an enhancement to the systems we already have in place. Nothing is more important than real life physical interactions with other people, going outside is always a good idea. Sick? Go to the doctor! But playing video games wont turn you into a psycho mass murderer or a fat lazy slob either. In proper dosages is well documented and reasonable that they are very good for your brain, and social well-being. I

Comment [B8]: This paragraph sucks!

Comment [B9]: Expand the conclusion to include all points covered in the paper

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discussed the impact and effect that video games have in an academic setting, but how would playing video games effect performance in a workplace environment?
Comment [B10]: Expand this idea

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Bibliography Adachi, Paul. "More Than Just Fun and Game: The Longitudinal Relationships Between Strategic Video Games, Self-Reported Problem Solving Skills, and Academic Adolescence . no. 10 (2013).

Grades." Journal of Youth and

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/235367249_More_Than_Just_Fun_and_ Games_The_ Longitudinal_Relationships_Between_Strategic_Video_Games_SelfReported_Problem_Solving_Skills_and_Academic_Grades (accessed October 3, 2013) Paul Adachi in this article presents the argument that video games are very good for students. He backs up his argument with large amounts of empirical data to support his argument. Adachis thesis is that games that require strategy help adolescents acquire life skills such as problem solving, and in turn higher problem solving skills that lead to higher grades in the academic community. The study book studies RPGs, which are role playing games, or games in which you assume control of the main character of the story, and play the game as if you were this character, controlling the interactions with other characters, what equipment you have, and all other major decisions in the game. It also focuses on first person shooter games, which are games that you complete missions and objectives in a first person view. This article presents some very compelling evidence for how video games promote higher thinking, and an active and engaged thought process, which ultimately can lead to higher academic performance. It would be interesting to see how these numbers would translate to the workplace, how those who play these types of games perform vs those who do not.

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Author unknown. Video Games and their effects on Children http://www.mda.gov.sg/Documents/PDF/mobj.579.parents_vid-effects.pdf This article discusses both the positive and possible negative effects. It is offered and a clear and concise source for parents to determine how to deal with video games for their children. The article discusses the game Americas Army, which was developed by the U.S. Army as a training resource for its officers to develop and test decision making. The Army has reported that there are positive effects to video games. This article discusses how the Army uses video games to train and prepare its soldiers, it leads one to think about how video games and other digital media could expand training and warfare in the future.

Bavelier, Daphne Your Brain on Video Games (Presentation, TED Talks, Filmed June 2012) http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html Video Games are not just for children, they actually help our brains become smarter better and stronger. In reasonable doses, like everything else because binging is never good, action packed shooter games have powerful beneficial effects. For example video games, make your eyesight better.. Gamers can resolve small detail in the context of clutter. It can improve our attention levels and our ability to focus, Gamers have better spacial awareness, meaning that they can track the objects around them better, than non gamers. Another study was done to see how well people multitask which is really just shifting your attention from one thing to another. Gamers have a substantially better reaction time, and can completely switch focus and attention very swiftly. This group was

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put up against a more revered group in society the multimedia-tasking group. These are those who are listing to music, surfing the web, doing homework and chatting on Facebook all at the same time. This group performed abysmally at multitasking. With this point it is important to state that not all multimedia or even video games are created equally. Different video games have different effects on the brain.

Gee, J.P Good Video Games and Good Learning Academic Lab. 3 October 2013 http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/documents/Good_Learning.pdf Gee discusses how games, although not usually created to be educational in nature, are in fact very educational. They cause us to think, to plan out, to fail and to re-think and rework the problems presented to us. Gee outlines the life skills that good games should relate to us and help us learn. He talks about how games help us learn outside of school, and help us perform better. How could video games be implemented better in the academic community, and how would that effect the performance of students. Gee, J.P.. "James Paul Gee on Learning with Video Games" Recorded March 21 2012. Youtube. Web http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnEN2Sm4IIQ Video games work just like books to help us learn. They have the same literacy qualities as other things. When we play video games socially, there is much more going on than just the game. We learn how to use cross functional teams. Every member of the team is an expert in their field, but has to be able to understand the other skill sets in the team just as well as your own. World of Warcraft is a great example of this. Games are only half the picture. affinity space where the game creates the interest, and then the

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player goes out into the internet and researches and delves into the topic. Portal uses physics, and there is a cetain set of physical laws, that are based on our own laws of physics, and there is a whole wiki based on describing and understanding these laws of physics. Games provide us with an opportunity to learn, they give us real experience with life things. He says that a kid who plays Portal for hours and hours, is more likely to succeed in physics, than a kid who has never played Portal, given that there are no other variables. Its like reading the manual before you play the game, it makes no sense at all, but once you play the game, it manual makes sense, you have lived in that world, been given images and experiences that you can associate with the words in the text, unlike before, they were just technical terms that had no real meaning. If you brought the activities the problem solving, the living in the world of chemistry and algebra making kids want to do things with them. To see them as tools to surmise to possibilities, thats the game. If we brought those to school, they would like is as much as Portal.

Grace, Jean. " Game Branches Out Into Real Combat Training." National Defense Magazine. Feburary 2006. http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2006/February/Pages/games_brance304 2.aspx (accessed October 15, 2013).

Griffes, Benjamin. "Assignment One Observation Notes." Accessed October 3, 2013. https://moodle2.uncc.edu/mod/assignment/view.php?id=127442.

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This article is a case study of a group of friends, several of which do not actually know each other outside the online environment, interact and cope with each other. Many think that the online environment is full of toxic players, or players who constantly trash talk and swear and are not generally friendly. But this case study shows that, even when pitted against each other in a game, people to not always become this way. It also shows how social skills, such and teamwork, system thinking and cross functional adaptation are learned and implemented. This article makes one ponder about how one may interact differently online with those he knows vs. ones he does not. Mcgonigal, Jane. "TEDtalks conversation " Recorded 02 2010. TED talks 03 2010. Web, http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html Video games are all about solving problems in the environment we are in. How can we spend that time solving the worlds problems? We spend 3 million hours a week worldwide playing video games. World of Warcraft, has been played for a collective 5.93 million years in the from 2002 to 2010. To put that into perspective, the first known upright human being was, about 6 million years ago. By the age of 21 the average person plays 10,000 hours of video games, the same amount of time spent in school from the 5th grade to high school graduation. Malcolm Gladwell, a distinguished author, wrote that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of meaningful involved study to become a virtuoso at something. That means the world is running around with video game virtuosos. But what exactly are gamers getting good at? Mcgonigal suggests four main ideas. Urgent optimism, which is extreme self-motivation, the desire to act immediately combined with the thought that we have a reasonable hope of success. Social Fabric, gamers are becoming virtuosos at weaving a tight social fabric. Its the idea of friends who play together stay together. Gamers are more adept at building trusting relationships with

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people, especially other gamers, than non gamers. Blissful Productivity, in games we are actually happier working hard, then we are just relaxing or doing nothing. Epic meaning, the realization that you are vital and important, its why most video games take place on a human planetary scale, such as saving the world from an alien invasion, or saving the galaxy, and you are the main protagonist. World of Warcraft is a environment where you are constantly on the verge of an epic win which is a success, where you thought no success was possible. You are also given constant feedback of leveling up or getting +1 strength or +1 intelligence. We dont get that in real life, we dont go to class and then walk out and see that we got +5 intelligence for that day, or finish a semester and level up. Thats why we often find ourselves getting so enthralled in these virtual environments, its so satisfying, that it can become better than real life. We often find ourselves being better online than in real life. We feel we can achieve more in games than in real life. Games are an escape from the real world, from real world problems and suffering. So what does all of this mean? How is any of this positive. Well right now its all just potential, untapped potential. McGonigal has created games, that force users to solve the hypothetical problems of the future, such as oil shortages, pollution, and other things that could threaten our planet in the future. She is adamant that if we work towards tapping the potential of these virtuosos, that we can solve the worlds problems in the future. Reilly, Luke. IGN, "5 Reasons Video Games Are Actually Good for You But video games are addictive, make kids fat and turn us all into trained killers, right?." Last modified 09 October 3, 2013. http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/10/5-

09, 2012. Accessed

reasons-video-games-are-actually-good-for-you Video games improve motor skills, especially in young children, as studies show. Video games actually relieve pain as well! Not just emotional pain, but real physical pain as well. Video

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games can improve eyesight. Video games help you make faster decisions. They have also been found to help us deal with mental illnesses.

Snodgrass, Jeffery, Michael G. Lacy, H.J. Francois Dengah II, Jesse Fagan, Enhancing one life rather than living two: Playing MMOs with offline friends, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 27, Issue 3, May 2011, Pages 1211-1222, ISSN 0747-5632, (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563211000057)