GAMER  VILLE 

It is assumed that videogames are only meant for young boys.

 

It is assumed they are bad for health.

 

It is assumed they affect behaviour in only negative ways.  

 

What do these three things have in common? Whilst videogames is the correct answer, the more important fact is that they are all assumptions and nothing more. Ever since the introduction of videogames into everyday life, they have been scrutinized in almost every aspect from who should be playing them to what effects they have on those who do play them. Gamers everywhere have heard the countless reasons why they shouldn’t indulge in the pastime – they’re a waste of time, they’re silly games that are only meant for kids and they turn your brain to mush. Not only is none of this proven, there’s actual evidence that shows videogames can often have a positive effect on health and behaviour on a range of people – both young and old and of either sex.

 

In the journal article ‘The Benefits of Playing Video Games’, Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C. M. E. Engels take an in-depth look at varying aspects of videogames and what effects they have – both positive and negative – on those who play them.

 

In this article, I will focus on the three main areas relating to videogames that are most commonly viewed as negative and stereotyped and I will attempt to break down these assumptions and present the facts for what they are.

 

Gender and Age

 

One of the most common misconceptions related to gaming is that of who plays them, and whilst most non-gamers assume only young boys play videogames this in fact couldn’t be further from the truth. The average gamer, according to the Video_Game_Voters Network, is 31 years old and has been playing videogames for 14 years. Even more surprising is that 48% of these gamers are women, making the ratio of male to female gamers 52% to 48% respectively, which is almost equal and highlights that the videogame industry no longer has a significant gender gap despite what most non-gamers may think.  Female gamers over the age of 18 actually represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population, at a substantial 36%, than boys aged 18 or younger who only account for 17%. Gender and age in relation to videogames often sparks quite heated debates, especially with the introduction of more R18+ rated games. Grand Theft Auto V was recently taken from the shelves of Target, K-Mart and Big W because of an ill-informed petition that claimed it was a violent, R18+ game that was intentionally aimed at children and involved such things as sexual violence, violence against women and no consequences for committing these crimes. Whilst the term ‘game’ makes most people think of children playing innocent games such as Mario Kart and Tetris, the fact is that the videogame industry has no age bracket. It is indisputably certain however, that any R18+ game is only ever meant for people 18 years or older.

 

Mental Health

 

Videogames are often criticized for having a negative effect on mental health and critics believe that they “can make you angry, unresponsive and soft in the brain” however “some cognitive scientists argue they can also be good for you” (Steffens). Everyone has heard why videogames are supposedly ‘bad for you’, although has it ever been considered that videogames maybe aren’t the cause of all of life’s problems, and can in fact have positive effects on those who play them.  It has been proven that people who play videogames have “faster and more accurate attention allocation, higher spatial resolution in visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities” (Steffens) than non-gamers. This is because the nature of videogames seems to induce flexibility within the brains visual cortex — “an area of the brain which influences how well you see and pay attention to objects in your visual field” (Steffens). In her article ‘Video games are good for you’ on the ABC’s Science website Maryke Steffens raises a very interesting question – “do gamers have naturally superior skills in these areas, and are drawn to playing video games as a result? Or are their skills a result of their playing?” If it’s the latter, then it’s fair to say that videogames could be significantly beneficial to non-gamers of all ages in terms of aiding mental health and it has actually recently been proven that playing videogames helps prevent Alzheimer’s.  A survey conducted on 500 12-year-old students also positively associated playing videogames with having higher creativity than those who don’t. Steffen’s refers in her article to Daphne Bavelier, a Professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester in the United States, who believes that playing videogames “links into working memory, so how many objects you can keep in your mind and work on at the same time, and how fast your attention works”. All of these aspects prove how positively videogames can effect mental health and whilst there are still of course negatives related to mental health and videogames, the positive effects need to be explored equally, if not even more so.

 

Behavioural Effects

 

It is true that videogames can affect those who play them, both in the way gamers think and the way they act, and countless research has been done to examine exactly how they influence gamers.  The research falls into three distinct categories: short term laboratory experiments; longer-term studies often based in schools; and correlation studies — between playing time and aggression, for instance, or between videogame sales and trends in violent crime.  Some studies done in schools have found that it is aggressive children who are most likely to be drawn to violent videogames in the first place. Another behavioural effect of playing videogames is related to social behaviour and the opinion that they are extremely anti-social. Granic, Lobel and Engels explain that “contrary to [popular] stereotypes, the average gamer is not a socially isolated, inept nerd” and recent studies show that “over 70% of gamers play their games with a friend, either cooperatively or competitively.” Online games account for the majority of the market in 2015 and just because those who play these games may not be directly socialising with people around them, they are still technically socialising with others just through technology instead of face-to-face. Whilst it could be argued that gamers are losing their ability to interact socially with others in a face-to-face manner, non-gamers also have to understand that we live in a technological world, and even social behaviours are developing into an online form and these online games often require varying forms of interaction and even teamwork and strategizing. Cheryl Olsen argues in her New York Times article 'It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend', explains that due to “the deliberately outrageous nature of violent games, though disturbing, makes them easily discernible from real life and suggests that the interactivity could potentially make such games less harmful” than that of television, movies or news programs that show real-life violence. Playing a violent game doesn’t make a person violent, in the same way that playing Surgeon Simulator doesn’t make every gamer a surgeon in real-life.  Olsen explains that violent behaviour can no longer be aligned with videogames as there has been a significant decrease in the last several years of violence amongst youths yet sales of videogames and the amount of violent videogames being played has increased during the same period. Videogames are beginning to have a far more positive effect on behaviour than anyone ever considered possible. Not only are they not fully proven to make gamers violent or aggressive, videogames are being validated in a number of different ways.  Granic, Lobel and Engels believe that “gaming may be among the most efficient and effective means by which children and youth generate positive feelings.”  

 

Final Stage

 

Assumptions within the video game industry are everywhere, from which people should be playing them to how negatively they affect those who do play them. However with games becoming more accepted within everyday society these assumptions are starting to break down. Non-gamers are beginning to acknowledge videogames as a legitimate pastime for people of all ages and genders. Videogames have developed past Pong, Asteroids and Tetris into something more akin to film and art – with deep storylines, meaningful emotions and moral and ethical issues at the forefront of many games. With these powerful themes, as well as the positive effects videogames can have on mental health and behaviour, it is difficult to understand why videogames get such a bad rap. A lot of the time, this bad image of videogames comes from the media who are very quick to make the link between negative human behaviours and videogame consumption. Rather than accepting what the media has to say on this topic, check the facts for yourself and you may be pleasantly surprised. 

 

 

References

 

Granic, Isabela, Adam Lobel, and Rutger CME Engels. "The benefits of playing video games." American Psychologist 69.1 (2014): 66. 30 May 2015.

 

Olson, Cheryl K. "It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend." Editorial. The New York Times 28 June 2011. The New York Times. 27 June 2011. Web. 30 May 2015.

 

Steffens, Maryke. "Video Games Are Good for You." Science Features (ABC Science). 24 June 2009. Web. 30 May 2015.