According to a study published by American Psychologist, playing video games, even violent shooter games, can help children improve their learning, health, and social skills.
The research comes when psychologists and other health professionals are still debating the influence of violent media on children and teenagers.
The Task Force on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media of the American Psychological Association is conducting a comprehensive evaluation of studies on violence in video games and interactive media.
“Important research on the negative effects of gaming, including addiction, depression, and aggression, has already been conducted for decades, and we are certainly not suggesting that this should be ignored,” says Isabela Granic, PhD, lead author of the article from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. “However, understanding the impact of video games on the development of children and adolescents requires a more balanced viewpoint.”
While one commonly held opinion is that playing video games is cognitively lazy, many studies in the article show that such play increases cognitive skills such as spatial navigation, logic, memory, and vision. According to the authors, this is especially true for violent shooter video games. According to the study, playing shooter video games improved a player’s ability to think about three-dimensional objects and academic courses aimed at strengthening similar abilities.
“This has critical consequences for education and career development,” Granic says, “since the earlier study has established the efficacy of spatial abilities for accomplishment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”
Other video games, such as puzzles and role-playing games, did not produce the same results.
According to the authors, playing video games can help children develop problem-solving skills. According to a long-term study, the more strategic video games, such as role-playing games, that adolescents reported playing, the better their problem-solving skills and school grades improved. According to previous studies, playing any video game, including violent games, increased children’s creativity, but not when they utilized other types of technology, such as a computer or mobile phone.
According to the study, simple games like “Angry Birds,” easy to access and play fast, can improve players’ emotions, promote relaxation, and reduce anxiety. “If simply playing video games makes people happier, this looks to be an important emotional advantage to consider,” Granic added. According to the authors, video games could be effective instruments for teaching resilience in the face of failure. Children can acquire emotional resilience in their everyday lives, according to the authors, by learning to cope with frequent failures in games.
Another myth debunked by the study is that of the socially isolated gamer. According to the survey, more than 70% of gamers play with a friend, and millions of players play video games like “Farmville” and “World of Warcraft” to immerse themselves in massive virtual worlds. According to the authors, Multiplayer games transform into virtual social groups in which players must make quick decisions on who to trust and reject and how to lead a group. Even if they are aggressive, people who compete in video games are more likely to be helpful to others than those who do not compete in the same games.
