Video gaming is approaching its fortieth birthday as we approach the year 2020. What started as a ball bouncing between two movable bricks has evolved into large open landscapes with endless possibilities. However, there is somewhat of a divide in the modern world between being for and against the implications of video games. While some people believe that video gaming causes spurts of violence in young children and hinders classroom development, others believe that daily gaming stimulates the mind and opens our deepest imaginative chambers of the mind allowing oneself to create, learn, and focus more than normally possible.
Before evaluating the actual chemical impact that gaming has on the brain, one must look at how gaming has influenced our society. Before today’s world of seemingly everybody having a gaming console in their homes, gaming was often done in arcades away from the household. The jump in gaming industry revenue can be seen in large from 1978 to 1981 where the numbers escalated from 1.8 billion to nearly 35 billion dollars today worldwide. Today the United States alone has a gaming market revenue estimate of around 36 billion dollars by itself. Globally in 2017, that number was estimated at over 137 billion dollars (Geofroy 2017 p.1). Furthermore, gaming has evolved to span countries and continents, allowing strangers to team up with and against each other in online settings. The ease of use, number of titles for all age groups, and relatively low pricing allow gaming to easily be one of the world’s most common pass-times and staple technology in over fifty-one percent of American households.
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The hippocampus is the area of the brain required for healthy cognitive thought and action. A 2017 study at the University of Montreal found that subjecting several individuals between ages eighteen to thirty saw a noticeable change in the amount of grey matter found within the hippocampus of the human brain. However, the study itself wasn’t so simple. It was subdivided into two groups; spatial and episodic memory. Spatial memory users who used the hippocampus to navigate saw an increase in hippocampus grey matter while the opposite was true for the episodic, “autopilot” gamers. Overall, the study found that certain games can cause different outcomes within the brain. Person Shooters have worse effects on the brain's cognitive development than platformers do as far as memory function goes. However, many FPS titles involve more than primary firing movements and trigger pull. Nowadays map recognition is important, thus flexing the player’s memory muscles and taking many FPS titles out of the category of episodic brain usage that puts the gamer on autopilot. The study is relatively new and while there is a connection between low hippocampus grey matter and illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s, nothing is concrete (Geofreoy 2017 p.17). Many games flex different areas of the human brain while others merely set the brain to rest and let basic cognitive thought take hold.
Scientists have published their works in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience on further examinations of the human brain under the effects of video games. An author within the aforementioned review, Marc Palaus stated, “Games have sometimes been praised or demonized, often without real data backing up those claims. Moreover, gaming is a popular activity, so everyone seems to have strong opinions on the topic.” There is great truth behind Palaus’ words as one can see from many newsworthy events involving violent children playing M-rated titles or gaming and media distracting students in the classroom. Most of these events point the finger at violent gaming when the real culprit could be any number of other harmful events attached to a young person’s psyche. The studies within this scholarly review examined structural changes and brain functionality and behavior. The first part of the study debunks the idea that video gaming negatively affects attention, showing improvements in sustained and selective attention. Additionally, the brain requires less activation to stay on task. A study from Florida State University, another study published within Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, found that most “brain games” meant to enhance any number of your brain’s functionalities are usually fake and will not affect your day-to-day life. The study tested those playing and not playing brain-training games and found little difference between the two. The study also found that aerobic activity, not brain training, was the best way to enhance one’s brain function (Brown 2016 p.12). Moreover, it should be kept in mind that scientific studies on video game effects are in their infancy and many scientists argue about what parts of the brain are affected most.
A University of California-Irvine found that gaming could boost the formation of memories. Memory tests were given that engaged the brain’s hippocampus of each participant with 30 minutes of gaming over two weeks. Additionally, the groups were separated by 3-D gaming and 2-D gaming. The 3-D group was the group that saw further increases in memory ability as compared to the 2-D group and the group that didn’t game at all. This is because 3-D games require increased engagement from the brain for spatial recognition. The 3-D group’s memory performance on the test increased by about twelve percent. Strategy games have been found to increase the hippocampus grey matter in the greatest amount which may protect from illnesses like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (Blumberg 2013 p. 8).
A Michigan State University study found that young people, who that games regularly have improved creativity and imagination in the classroom. This is for several different reasons. First, games help you recharge after stressful times. Any game experience that challenges the brain increases the dopamine levels in the brain which increases motivation and willpower. Gaming also teaches you how to be a leader and achieve group goals. Gaming can also be used as a method of priming your brain for activity. Dopamine is one of the strongest drivers of work ethic. The creative perks that come with video gaming daily are examined as more beneficial than negative and long-lasting (Lemish 2014 p.23).
The Michigan State article continues by giving some examples of games that have been shown to improve specific areas of function and development. Counter-Strike, a world-famous FPS title that involves map memorization, aiming dexterity, and communicational skill is a game that can be used to improve attention. World of Warcraft, a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is a great game to improve social skills. Warcraft includes large thought-out group onslaughts and raid teams with many different statistics all coming into play that must be handled by a team’s combined effort. Finally, The Sims is a series of games released within the past fifteen years that gives a player unlimited creativity in virtual reality. A creative mind can flourish in this environment as the player is not only allowed to build houses but also to live out the life of the character they create, with little boundary on what can be done. Other games such as Bejeweled have been proven to be great tools in managing anxiety, much like listening to ambient piano and the sounds of waterfalls and nature. Calming games that focus and center the mind are proven ways to reduce stress from the workday or everyday life (Nichols 2017 p. 6).
While the upsides of video gaming as a hobby seem to never end, there is always the ongoing argument against violence in video games and how it affects young minds. We live in an age where school shootings are unfortunately becoming a commonality. While there may be many different pressures on a young mind to commit such heinous acts of violence, video games containing guns and death are ever prevalent in our American society and around the world. Both President Trump and Barack Obama have invested time and resources into investigating the effects of violent video games on youth. The research begins with whether gaming can be considered a disorder. According to the International Classification of Diseases for something to be considered a disorder it must meet three criteria: “if a person loses control over their gaming habits, if they start to prioritize gaming over many other interests or activities, and if they continue playing despite clear negative consequences” (Lemish 2014 p. 17).
Scientists are currently having an issue when calling gaming addictive because video gaming can be a coping mechanism for those struggling with anxiety and depression. The conclusion that many scientists have made regarding violence in video games begins and ends with whether the behavior is violent or aggressive. While it has been found that people tend to exhibit more aggressive behaviors after avid gaming, they do not turn to violent behaviors. Grand Theft Auto 5, perhaps the most purchased and most played game of our time includes many violent acts that the player could potentially perform while roaming the virtual streets of a make-believe Los Angeles-esc city. A study in 2015 found, “In the months after the popular violent video game was released, crime rates tend to drop” (Nichols 2017 p. 13). Most scientists studying the issue believe that playing a violent video game offers a catharsis for anger and frustration.
In an age where violent video games are the most popular and biggest money-makers it is easy for one to make the connection between those games and the terrible shootings that happen across America seemingly every year. However, The US Secret Service holds that only about twelve percent of all students held accountable for school shootings had any interest in gaming at all. Youth violence overall has dropped nearly twenty-nine percent between 2002 and 2014. However, this is also just a correlation and doesn’t mean that games cause a decrease in violence. Often politicians such as Donald Trump will state that it isn’t gun control that is creating monsters who commit heinous acts on school campuses but violent video games that are “creating monsters” (Lemish 2014 p.8). While the number of school shootings is far less in foreign countries, the number of gun murders is not. Companies with larger gaming markets such as Japan, Germany, and Australia have much higher gun murder rates than the US. In the end, the verdict remains split between politics and science as to what makes a young mind do terrible things to others.
The introduction of violent video games can be compared to other rather violent events that took place in pop culture history. Ozzy Osbourne was the end of society and the death of music at the time for some. Everybody now realizes that that was not the case. While influencers such as Ozzy and Eminem have sometimes vile lyrics and off-putting stage performances, their effect on young minds wasn’t the cause of some violent acts believed to be connected to them. Video gaming can be viewed in perhaps a similar respect. However, it is important to recognize that there are proven good and bad to video gaming and perhaps school shootings are not an outlier.
Aside from the ethical implications involving school shootings, gaming has many other possible fields that many people do not realize. Virtual Reality is slowly coming to fruition in the gaming community. New technology, no matter what the platform, always has a slow rise to fame. VR technology has been used both medically and for entertainment. VR can now be used to create a safe soothing environment for those suffering from PTSD. Researchers have also used VR instead of drugs to deal with pain from surgeries. The effects on the brain are similar albeit far less changing (Brown 2016 p. 17).
In conclusion, video gaming is a hobby that has taken the world by storm since the console era started in the early 2000s. Since then, the industry has been valuing at over 100 billion dollars in the United States alone. There is quite a bit of good and bad associated with gaming even though its exposure reaches so many young minds across the world. It has been proven to no doubt alter the mind, in mostly beneficial ways. However, it is impossible to not recognize the uncanny connection between violent acts that seem more prevalent in our current day and the commonality of gaming in the average household. Regardless, gaming has become a staple part of American pastimes and an integral part of technological development in both the United States and worldwide.
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