If you’re a gamer (and if you’re reading this article, you most likely are), you’ve often thought about the intersection between Psychology and gaming. For example, you’re probably aware of the issues surrounding gaming addiction and the potential negative effects of violent video games. However, playing video games is also associated with certain positive benefits. Lucky for you, I just wrote an article over at Psych Applied outlining the results of certain psychological studies about video games. Here, I will briefly discuss some of those results for a gaming audience instead of a Psychology audience. Let us begin with some of the positive effects of playing video games.
Beneficial Effects Of Gaming
Research has shown a number of positive effects of playing video games. It is unclear whether these effects are caused by playing video games, or whether they reflect baseline differences in people who choose to play video games and people who choose not to play video games. Regardless, studies have shown the following:
- Playing active video games like Wii Fit can improve cognitive functioning
- Young people who play video games for more than five hours per week show increased academic achievement and improved social relationships
- Playing action video games can help improve reading performance in children with dyslexia, even more than traditional treatments
- Medical students who are gamers are immediately better at certain surgery tasks than their non-gaming peers
Now, keep in mind that it is unclear whether these positive effects are actually caused by playing video games. Still, it is notable that these effects exist. As always, further research is needed to elucidate these effects. Now let us turn to some of the negative effects of playing video games.
Harmful Effects Of Gaming
Psychology studies have indicated that there are a number of negative effects of gaming. While some of these effects can be overblown in the media (or given disproportionate attention compared to the positive effects), it is important to know the facts. Research has shown the following harmful effects of gaming:
- 1-10% of children and adolescents worldwide meet the criteria for internet gaming disorder (IGD), and IGD can lead to depression and aggression as well damage to social relationships
- Playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (not the newest one) for 30 minutes led to more behavioral aggression than playing LittleBigPlanet 2
- However, a study of younger children indicated that playing violent video games did not lead to psychosocial changes over the period of a year
- On-screen violence in general can have harmful effects, though it seems that video game violence can have particularly harmful effects.
The authors of that last study clarified that individuals behave aggressively or violently due to a variety of factors, and that violent video gaming is just one factor that should be monitored but not necessarily condemned. It does seem like violence in video games should be examined, even if certain groups may overstate the harmful effects while minimizing the harmful effects of other on-screen violence. Similarly, video game addiction (that is, IGD) should not be completely ignored either.
Ultimately, it is clear that playing video games has both positive and negative effects. If you want to read more about these studies, check out the original article at Psych Applied, which includes full citations for all of them as well as links to their abstracts. It’s always good to be informed.
