Videogames are good for you: study

A new study has found that playing games and being a gamer is a good thing, despite the supposed adverse side effects that many sensationalist news sites are quick to point out about the hobby.

The findings will be published in the American Psychologist, one of the biggest journals for psychology in America. The authors of the study claim that their findings have critical implications for education and that playing games has multiple benefits including improved reasoning, sharper memory, and lower anxiety levels.

The study was overseen by Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands, Isabela Granic, who conducted the study to attempt to lay to rest misconceptions about gaming and its benefits or detriments to the human psyche. “Important research has already been conducted for decades on the negative effects of gaming, including addiction, depression and aggression, and we are certainly not suggesting that this should be ignored,” says Granic.

“However, to understand the impact of video games on children’s and adolescents’ development, a more balanced perspective is needed.”

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Some widely held views maintain that playing games is intellectually lazy, but other views assert that gaming has benefits (some of them immediate) to spacial navigation and perception. These opposing ideas and other misconceptions about gaming are addressed in the study as it begins by looking at the findings of others before introducing Granic’s own conclusions.

Granic’s study concludes that all games, even violent ones, have a benefit to a player’s cognitive abilities and even their health. It discusses the results of another 2013 study that found that popular shooter games improved a player’s capacity to think about objects in three dimensions just as well as academic courses to enhance these same skills.

‘This has critical implications for education and career development, as previous research has established the power of spatial skills for achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” Granic said. The benefits to perception weren’t seen in other game types, although these enhanced other areas of a player’s ability, including problem-solving.

Granic mentioned the findings of yet another 2013 study, which showed that the more adolescents reported playing strategic video games, such as role-playing games, the more they improved in problem solving and school grades the following year. What’s more, creativity was also enhanced by playing any kind of video game, including violent games. Simpler games improved the player’s ability to relax and ward off tension and anxiety.

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The study also highlighted the possibility that video games are effective tools to learn resilience in the face of failure. By learning to cope with on-going failures in games, the study suggests that children build emotional resilience they can rely upon in their everyday lives.

Another stereotype the research challenged is the socially isolated gamer. More than 70 per cent of gamers play with a friend and millions of people worldwide participate in massive virtual worlds through video games such as Farmville, Battlefield, and World of Warcraft, the study notes. Playing games in a team may also assist with improving social skills and co-ordination with teammates.

Multiplayer games become virtual social communities, where decisions need to be made quickly about whom to trust or reject and how to lead a group, Granic’s study says.

The study emphasised that educators are currently redesigning classroom experiences, integrating video games that can shift the way the next generation of teachers and students approach learning. Likewise, physicians have begun to use video games to motivate patients to improve their health, including scenes in games to help patients overcome phobias.

“If playing video games simply makes people happier, this seems to be a fundamental emotional benefit to consider,” said Granic.

Go ahead, play this if it makes you happy.

So, anyone killing some zombies tonight? Visiting Columbia? Flattening a building in Shangai? Racing on the Nurburgring? Fighting Bowser? Calling Squall a wimp? Holding onto that last bit of health for your ship before the next salvo of cannon fire? Do it with a bigger smile. Gaming is good for you!