Alberto Ceja

Ms. Figueroa

Senior English 1

2 November 2018

Are Video Games Good For You?

Parents don’t recognized children playing video games can be very beneficial for them. It

has many positive effects such as treating mental illness, improving problem solving skills, and

team working skills too. Some parents think that their children shouldn't play video games

because it can be addicting and cause their child to fall behind in school or live an unhealthy

lifestyle. This is a problem because video games can impact their life in so many ways. Ever

since video games begin to evolve in the 80’s parents had this wrong view towards video

games.

Parents believe playing violent video games causes aggressive behavior. Believe playing

all day leads to obesity, lack of sleep, or changes in physical appearance. Most importantly

gaming addiction, which all these negative effects can happen if addiction occurs. Although

these are valid reasons to not let their child play but I also think it can be prevented easily. I think

parents will realize the benefits of playing video games in the future. They will realize the

success in the gaming community and soon be on board. Soon the news will also show the

positive side of gaming and encourage parents to push their children to maybe pursue

professional gaming as a career.

Video games are more than just sitting in front of a screen and easily learning how to

play. Games can be very challenging and may require your full attention. Some people don't

have the ability to stay focus while playing or even outside of playing. According to this article,
shooting games specifically is a good way to help you stay more focus because of its fast pace

and requirement of fast reflexes. “Compared to control participants, those in the shooter video

games condition show faster and more accurate attention allocation high/spatial resolution in

visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities”(Granic 20). Playing shooter games

improves your attention span and enhanced mental rotation abilities which can help you in your

everyday life. Along with puzzles games also has its own effect too which is problem solving.

According to this real life example a group of people came together to solve a problem using

their skills from playing problem solving based games. “The story behind a recent breakthrough

in biology research provides a nice illustration of how gamers superior, spatial and problem

solving skills, as well as their creativity, all came together to solve a real world”(Granic 23).

Children or anyone can carry this skill to school or in the real world. Overall, video games do

improve certain skills you can use every day.

Furthermore, multiplayer games can also have an impact to your everyday life.

Multiplayer games are based working together to achieve a goal using communication, planning,

and leadership. “...cooperative play leads to at least a temporary increase in the player’s

likelihood of cooperating with or helping other people, outside the realm of play” (Gray 8). You

can use this skill and apply it to school, work, or every day. In addition it can put you in difficult

situations and you'll need to overcome it in order to succeed. According to this article children

will overcome difficult situations in the real world because of video games. “There is evidence

that children who have been “protected” from experiencing such emotions in play are

subsequently less able to deal with the inevitable fear and anger producing situations of real,

outside of play” (Gray 30). Children will be in tough times throughout their life and this will
most likely play a role when it happens. Overall, these impacts can make your life better and

prepare you for future situations.

Also, video games has been proven that it can help treat mental illness and help recover

form brain injuries. Accordingly to an article a women who is a game designer suffered a brain

injury so she created a game to help recover from her injury. “So when McGonagall [game

designer] suffered a traumatic brain injury a few years ago, she created her own game to help

herself heal… she turned this into a program to help others work through depression, anxiety,

brain injuries, and chronic”(Brenson 15). She knew this could benefit other people so she made it

into a program to help others too. Studies has shown what parts of the brain operate when done

playing video games through brain scans. “...brain scans show the most active parts of the brain

are the rewards pathway system, which is associated with motivation and goal orientation, and

the hippocampus, which is associated with learning and memory”(Brenson 19). Video games can

be an exercise for your brain just like math problems in school. Basically, video games are

deeper than it seems they improve your mental state and help recover from certain brain injuries.

Although some parents might argue that video games leads to gaming addiction, it’s been

proven that children are most likely to get addicted easily than adults. “The literature, to date,

suggest that adolescent males and young male adults appear to be at greater risk of experiencing

problematic video game play” (Griffths 22). That’s because of children brain not being fully

developed yet are most likely to become addicted. Parents fear that children might go through

comorbid disorders because of the addiction. “Research has also shown gaming addiction to be

associated with a variety of comorbid disorders” (Griffths 33). Gaming addiction causes

disorders such as anxiety disorder, panic disorder, depression, social phobia. Just like any other
addiction, it has its side effects. Overall, children shouldn’t play videogames because they can

easily be addicted to videogames and ruin their life.

Additionally, it can also lead for a child to drop everything in their life such as school and

themselves and only focus in gaming. “A child who consistently ignores school work in

preference to gaming is likely to fall behind” (Kennard 25). Parents would never want their child

to fall behind in school they will do everything to make that happen, so taking away videogames

makes sense. Once you are addicted you stop caring everything around you, even yourselves.

“Anyone who doesn’t get sufficient sleep, who doesn’t get sun, who over eats, or who acts and

thinks a regular unhealthy diet is going to show the effects” (Kennard 33). Many people lose

track of their own body and become very sick and parents fear of that. Finally, gaming addiction

is real and children are most likely to have a higher risk of getting addicted.

While that may be the case, this will only happen if parents are misinformed with video

games. Parents need to set boundaries in order for their children won’t get addicted and so they

don’t fall behind in school and stop taking care of themselves . It’s true that children are easier to

get addicted but children could easily benefit from playing video games such as improving

problem solving skills and team working skills too.

Some parents are misinformed with videogames and don’t realize that video games can

impact your life. Playing video games has many positive effects to your brain that benefit you by

making your life easier. Parents should look at the good things of video games instead just

finding all the negative effects. Hopefully they will be convinced them to not to believe the news

about false information towards videogames. It will change the way some parents think about

videogames.
 Works Cited

Berenson, Tessa. “Why Playing Video Games Can Actually Be Good for Your

Health.” Time.com, 26 Sept. 2015, http://www.time.com/4051113/why-playing-video-

games-can-actually-be-good-for-your-health/.

Granic, Isabela, et al. “The Benefits of Playing Video Games.” Apa.org, American Psychologist,

Jan. 2014, http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0034857.pdf.

Gray, Peter. “Benefits of Play Revealed in Research on Video Gaming.” Psychologytoday.com,

17 Mar. 2018, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201803/benefits-play-

revealed-in-research-video-gaming.

Griffiths, Mark D., et al. “Video Game Addiction: Past, Present and

Future.” Current Psychiatry Review, 6 Apr. 2012,

http://www.Irep.ntu.ac.uk.irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5976/1/211418_PubSub798_kuss.pdf.

Kennard, Jerry. “Are Video Games Bad for Your Health?” Healthcentral.com, Remedy Health

Media, 19 Sept. 2012, www.healthcentral.com/slideshow/8-ways-video-games-are-bad-

for-your-health.