Positive Impacts of Video Games
It is a fact beyond doubt that video games have incredibly become both popular and a pervasive form of entertainment to children as well as adolescents. Cases of playing video games have also increased steadily over time. For instance, in US alone, research estimates show that 99% of young men and 94% of young ladies exercise video gaming. Out of these estimates, 97% play these games for at least an hour on daily bases. Revenue statisticians have also ranked video game industry on top with $25 billion dollars and this is a clear indication that video gaming has become part and parcel of the popular culture. Video games have more positive impacts than negative impacts to participants (Ferguson &Christopher, 309).
However, stories based on media keep on warning parents and guardians on the potential dangers to their children out of playing video game. Some of the dangers presented include depression, potential addiction as well as violent behavior. These warnings have come forth in the upshot of just a single violent occurrence associated with video gaming, Adam Lanza, a Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman who on regular bases practiced shooter games. Even after periods of thorough research on negative impacts of video gaming, the outcome still remains debatable despite of the attention given in sector of treatment programs to discourage youngsters from excessive video game playing (Rosser, et al., 181).
But is video gaming really harmful? An analysis article published by US psychologist has recently suggested for a look into the positive aspects of video gaming besides the negative impacts. In reference to Isabela Granic together with some other researchers from the University of Radboud in Netherlands, the media stories on Video gaming have largely ignored the fact that video gaming has recently changed to become more social and realistic in nature (Ryan et al., 344).
In the last five years, research has documented positive impacts on both children and adolescents who play the current interactive video games. Dutch researchers for instance have put it clear that video gaming equip children with pretty persuasive cognitive, emotional and social capabilities; they also have an aptitude of boosting the mental health of a child as well as his or her well-being (Anderson et al., 353).
Research based on evolutionary and developmental mindset has long despised the positive impacts of playing video games, especially when a child is in the process of mental growth and development. Not only do playing social video games help a child to test different social scenarios, but also can enable them learn different approaches of handling different kinds of skirmishes they might encounter in real life situations. This helps children and adolescents cultivate social experiences which are very important as they mature up. Themes dominating in these video games such as aggression, separation, pain and dominance can be learned under non-threatening circumstances. This helps a child to learn how to unite and appreciate his or her peers (Granic et al., 66).
More recently, researchers on brain adaptability who were scrutinizing play fighting on pests concluded that play fighting has a capability of releasing chemical tumor elements in brain regions which are harmonized for social actions. This entails the detour frontal intricate which is stirred as a result and develops more. Considering the resilient similarities amongst some of the animals and human play, a research by Granic and her colleagues suggested that playing video games provides brain stimulation to children as well (Gee &James, 20).
Having no doubt that ordinary playing can offer extensive range of positive impacts to participants; does the kind of play permissible by collaborative video gaming produce similar positive impacts? Again Rosser James and his co-researchers argued that it did. Not only does video gaming allow participants to familiarize with the gaming systems in a manner that is not possible for other forms of amusement like movies and cinema, but also can be exercised with thousands of other players online in a competitive way. Video gaming has also been practiced on dedicated systems like in the case of PlayStation, tablets and cell phones (Millar & Douglas, 203). Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Among the popular games being exercised online today is the “World of Warcraft” which allows more than ten million participants to exhibit their experience in gaming, battle other rivals and explore some complex virtual environments. Minecraft has many players who use simple features to come up with complicated mechanisms and structures which can be exchanged online and come up with enormous virtual sceneries. In “The Sims 3”, the players usually create virtual environments where simulated participants can collaborate with other online characters to learn current skills, play and even work in dedicated settings hence forming complex relationships. With the large number of interactive gaming systems readily available, it is surprising how gaming experience has laid a gaming culture with both cybernetic and non-virtual communities around the world and differences among casual, “core”, “hard-core”, and how pro gamers are able to earn income from competitive gaming (Rosas et al., 71).
As for the actual positive impacts that can be realized from video game playing, Ryan and his co-authors provided a broad analysis of the literature depicting that video gaming can nature skills in different areas (Bösche).
Cognitive development
Research based on action video gaming show that it enhances mental rotation ability, accurate and faster attention distribution and improved spatial firmness in visual dispensation. Meta-analysis has indicated that spatial abilities can be natured in a pretty shorter time through video gaming and that the outcome is often equivalent to the training offered in the courses which are designed to improve same skills. Cognitive benefits from video gaming also tend to produce stronger neural efficiency and processing, improve the attention functioning of participants, and also help in quick pattern recognition. In regard to this point, the best results came from “shooter” video game contrast to puzzle-solving (Chandrasekharan et al., 313).
Straightforward video gaming and some other collaborative media available online allow children improve their problem solving abilities by learning how to resolve puzzles in trial and error approach. Interactive video games also widen participants’ creativity. Even though not very clear how these skills acquired from video gaming generalize to the real world scenarios, early research outcome on the area seem promising (Ferguson & Christopher, 309).
Motivation benefits
By setting up some tasks and sanctioning participants to work through the posed obstacles to solve those scenarios, video gaming helps in boosting the self-esteem of children as well as teaching them the value of persistence when faced with real life problems. When video gamers realize that they can provide immediate feedback in solving those tasks and achieve greater results, they learn to believe in themselves as intelligent and skillful in a way otherwise they would not have realized. Video gaming helps children learn that intelligence is an incremental process i.e. a skill that advances from time to time and with efforts slightly than being a fixed state. Solving gaming problems immediately also keeps participants in a position of proximal advancement which enables them to tackle real life problems independently in attempt to achieve specific goals. Since as the game advances more difficulty cases arises, video gaming provides players with intermitted reinforcement hence encouraging them not to give up in life despite facing growing challenges in real life (Greitemeyer & Silvia, 211).
Emotion benefits
Most of video gamers play those video games to improve their moods and for enjoyment purposes. Along with diverting their attention from real life problems (such as bullying and other forms of life problems) making it in a video game competition leads to positive feelings, relaxation and reduced anxiety. A number of video gamers portray intense feelings of conceit and achievements by involving themselves in video games that enable them have high sense of control and that “takes them out of themselves.” According to Anderson and his co-scholars, the notion of flow denotes to the state of mind reported by gamer’s oftenly when doing an activity that fully gets them immersed without feelings of self-consciousness. Flow capabilities have therefore been associated with positive results like high self-esteem and a feeling of accomplishment that can lead to positive mental health impacts (Greitemeyer & Silvia, 121).
Positive emotions resulting from being immersed into and video gaming on daily basis has also the ability of increasing players’ awareness and encouraging them to have a more innovative outlook on real life scenarios. According to Millar and Douglas who initially proposed the theory of “broaden and build” in regard to positive emotions, undergoing positive emotions helps in broadening behaviors considered desirable as well as building social relationships that provides support in the process of achieving individual goals and dealing with failure scenarios. The research also suggested that positive emotions have the ability of countering the effects of negative emotions which usually decreases motivation (Greitemeyer et al., 235).
Physical Fitness Increase
Video gaming has also proven to have physical health benefits, especially after the invention of Xbox Kinect, Wii and PlayStation Eye Toy. These three gaming technologies require the player to move physically for him or her to be in a position of controlling the game. A current study by Maddison et al. has indicated that these gaming systems which call for physical activeness play crucial roles in battling the emerging obese epidemic in young people. They research analysis indicated that by being involved in PlayStation eye toy or Wii for just an hour in a day, children BMI (body mass index) reduced by 8 percent and their body mass reduced by 50 percent. All what the researchers had to do was to have sedentary gamers substitute one of their gaming hours with a substantially active video game for just 24 weeks. This study has opened a new window for intervening obesity cases in young people since it provides treatment that not only works, but that children are likely to put into use (Kato, 113).
Social benefits
More than never before, video gaming has intensely become a very important social activity. Apart from stereotypical gaming where video gaming is used to avoid social contact, more than 70 percent of video gamers play in collaboration with colleagues as part of the team or competing directly. Video games like Farmville and World of Warcraft integrate many users, entailing online social groups and regular exchanges with other gamers. Both prosocial and social activities are inherent forms of video gaming experience enabling the participants rapidly learn social aids that could be easily generalized to social affiliations in real life situations.
Though many video games have lots of violent literature, they can still provide the players with golden opportunities to learning social skills if the focus is diverted to cooperation with the rest of gamers. Research indicates that playing video games in groups decreases the feeling of hostility as compared to playing alone. However, further research is required in this area although there is a strong prospective value of cooperative play when it comes to building social behavior and limiting antisocial thoughts.
Although video gaming has been taken as more of pure entertainment, its popularity has led to innovation of new initiatives aimed at “gamifying” medical interventions which will keep patients motivated regardless of their health status as well as being informed on available treatment options. A good example of such games is the Re-Mission video game which has been designed in target of young patients of cancer. Apprehended by Pam Omidyar and advanced by HopeLab Foundation, Re-Mission video gaming allows participants to have control over nanobot which is usually introduced into a human body to monitor the health status of a patient and shoot cancer cells. Children who play this game usually learn their individual illness, the lateral effects of treating cancer as well as the significance of adhering to cancer treatment. Further research has demonstrated that cancer patients who play Re-Mission are always better informed about cancer status and therefore initiate superior self-efficacy treatment. Already experimented by over 200,000 cancer patients, Re-Mission has been widely acknowledged as a reliable tool to treat cancer (Maddison et al., 54).
A number of video games have also been developed covering diverse academic topics, including mathematics, foreign languages, history and geography. Research regarding the value of video gaming as a teaching method has already ranked educational video games among the top teaching aids which will help educators meet the challenges commonly faced in classrooms in future. However, a small number of video games have been studied officially by different researchers and therefore quality control remains very important.
Despite of the impending positive impacts of video gaming, it is clearly evident that media coverage has constantly majored on the negative impacts, principally due to concerns of violent content and addiction of video games. According to Isabela Granic and her co-researchers, attaching labels on video games such as “bad”, “prosocial” or “violent” has largely overlooked the broad picture around the current forms of video gaming available today. Players are attracted to video gaming practice of their choice and the advantages or disadvantages in regard to how they play these games depend with their enthusiasm for playing (Schmierbach et al., 307).
Future research will need to concentrate not only on the negative impacts of video gaming but also pay attention on the positive aspect. This will place the researchers in a position of understanding the influence video gaming can have on motivational, social and cognitive functioning. This will also enable them understand how video games affect children at certain points in their process of growth. Though current video gaming supposedly carries warning labels depicting some games to be unsuitable under specific ages, there has been no study to prove the validity of these claims.
Conclusion
Overall, this paper has outlined in detail several benefits as well as positive impacts of taking place in video gaming. They are capable of improving cognitive abilities, like increasing visuospatial cognition, attention, participants’ mental rotation, and assist those with cognitive limitations overcome the situation. Video gaming also primes the natural positive aggression, prosocial behaviors as well as helping change behaviors. They can also be of much importance in the healthcare sector especially when it comes to creating awareness on cancer and treating burn patients. Improving physical health through combating the obesity problems in young people is another positive impact associated with video gaming. Generally, these positive impacts indicate that video gaming may do more good than harm to participants. Such findings should be used to influence policy makers and show them that stricter regulations on video gaming are unnecessary. Further research is however the only ways to show positive impacts that have recently emerged and overthrow the many faulty and bias experiments of the past.