Positive Impact Of Video Games On Human Behaviour

Making games and playing them appears to be a normal human thing to do throughout history. Ancient Greeks, Vikings and Egyptians all enjoyed games. Video games have been popular past time for the last few decades and is now the fastest-growing type of recreation. Zimmerman and Salen describe video games as a simulated conflict with rules and with different results. Video games is defined as a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or other display screen. In 1961 the first video game made was Space War and it was created by MIT students. Since then video games have become way more popular and are now in are homes on TVs or on smaller handheld devices. In the 1980s video games became a lot more popular and became mainstream. Since then video games have changed a lot since they are simple games like PacMan and Donkey Kong. The advancement of technology such as voice chat services and affordable high-performance graphic cards and higher internet speeds have made video games the largest entertainment industry in the world.

According to the Entertainment Software Association over two thirds of American households play some type of video game regularly. And on average play 7 hours per week. In 2016, the video game industry made over $30 billion in revenue in the USA and over $91 billion worldwide. Before video games were considered to be a single person activity, but nowadays more than 60% of gamers will play in person with others and over 90% of PC gamers will play with friends online. These results have been doubled since 2013. Some researchers consider the activity of people connecting with other people online to play video games together, as a form of social networking since written and oral conversation takes place during gameplay and is not restricted to only game-related topics. Also Lachlan, Greenberg, Sherry, and Desouza report one of the main reasons people play games is for the social interactions they have with friends and for the possibility of making new friends. I believe that video games can be beneficial to your mind and improve our life.

To show you how big the size of the gaming industry is we can compare it to the other leading forms of entertainment in America. In 2016, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry in the US made $7.7 billion in revenue. The movie box office in North America made $11.38 billion in 2016. Even when combined they pale in comparison to the gaming industry. Also, possibly the gaming industry can provide stimulating, meaningful ways for schools and colleges to deliver and implement education, such as textbook replacement, virtual schools/classrooms, and enhanced didactic methods.

Against popular beliefs that the activity of playing video games is a lazy and mind-numbing activity, it’s reported to show an increase in cognitive skills. This is especially true for shooter video games that are violent. (such as Call of Duty, Halo Reach, and Grand Theft Auto 5.) The most persuasive evidence comes from many experiment training studies that recruit people that barely play games and randomly make them play either a shooter game or another genre of video game for the same amount of time. Those that play shooters compared to people who don’t, the gamers showed higher spatial resolution in visual processing, accurate and faster attention allocation, and enhanced mental rotation abilities. A recent study (Uttal et al., 2013) reported that the spatial skills improvements from playing first-person shooters are comparable to the results of university and high school level courses that are focused at enhancing these same skills. This recent study showed that spatial skills can be trained with video games in short sessions, and these beneficial effects last over a long period of time and also these skills can transfer to other spatial assignments outside of gaming.

There has also been researching demonstrating these cognitive improvements apparent in measurable changes in efficiency and neural processing. A recent MRI experiment found out that the part of the brain that is used for attention was used less in regular gamers than non-gamers, which suggests that regular gamers don’t need to use as much of that part of the brain when going through a challenging pattern-detection task as compared to non-gamers.(Bavelier, Achtman, Mani, & Föcker, 2012) Not all genres of video games enhance peoples cognitive abilities. Cognitive abilities are improved from playing shooter games not role-playing games or puzzle games. (C. S. Green & Bavelier 2012)

Also scholars have theorized that video games are a great way to improve problem-solving skills (Prensky, 2012).All genres of video games have problem-solving even the violent ones. Video game puzzles can be as simple as finding the fastest way from a to b or as complex as figuring out a complex action sequence using memorization and analytical skills.

One example of gamers solving real-world problems is when gamers’ superior spatial problem-solving skills and creativity to solve an almost impossible problem. In 2008, the researchers at the University of Washington created an online game called Foldit. The game was about making models of the genetic makeup of proteins. (Cooper et al.,2010) .In 2010, at the end of the three-week competition, the players with the most points had generated phase estimates that allowed researchers to create a solution of the crystal structure for a monkey virus related to aids. The structure had confused researchers for over 10 years. The problem was solved thanks to the creative problems solving of gamers.

There are also motivational benefits of gaming. Video games give concrete and immediate feedback and rewards and serve to rewards repeated efforts. Vygotsky coined the term ‘zone of proximal development which is the motivational sweet spot. The sweet spot balances a good amount of challenge and frustration with a good amount of success and accomplishment (Sweetser & Wyeth, 2005). The best games on the market uses this sweet spot well. The game dynamically adjusts its self, the difficulty is being adjusted according to the players’ ability by increasing the difficulty of puzzles requiring more dexterity, more complex solutions, and quicker reaction times. Being immersed in these games provide players a basic lesson in persistence, or not giving up in the face of failure.

One of the biggest differences compared to before to now days is the social nature. Contrary to stereotypes the average gamer isn’t an anti-social nerd. Over 70% of gamers play games with a friend. For example the game World of Warcraft a multiplayer fantasy game set in a massive open world that has 12 million regular players. The game is designed to require and reward effective cooperation, helping behaviours, and support among players. These social situations in games help gamers learn social skills and social behaviours that can translate to real-life relationships.