My brother has been spending a lot of his holiday playing video games. The other day I questioned him how good for him all of this playing time would be. We argued for a few minutes, as I claimed it had to be bad for his brain, and he, of course, claimed it to be beneficial. I did some research in attempt to prove him wrong. After looking around for a while, I found a perspective article written by Bavelier et al. featuring numerous authors, each with their own perspective on how video games affect the brain.

Bavelier first highlights that we must be careful when making sweeping generalizations about “video games”, because there are not only numerous games, but also many ways in which they can be played (whether with a console, on a computer or on a cellular device or tablet). In the study that Bavelier refers to, they specifically focus on “action” games, and research indicates that there are in fact benefits that go along with these, such as low-level vision enhancements, increased processing speeds and better visual attention. Such games can be used in rehabilitation for those with a “lazy eye”, Bavelier claims.

While my brother was thrilled by these findings, he wasn’t as pleased with what Merzenich had to say in his perspective piece. Merzenich mentioned that there is a direct negative correlation between the number of hours a day spent playing video games and one’s academic achievement. While this obviously doesn’t indicate lowered intelligence from playing video games. It could in fact be that the increased screen time takes time away from one’s studies, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. Another study highlighted by Bavelier indicated that despite video game’s aren’t bad for the brain, they also may not be good. Despite the fact that experienced video gamers are generally better at spatial navigation in computer-mediated tasks that those who were not of the same experience level, this experience didn’t actually translate to the same spatial navigation skills in the real world. So, being an excessive gamer may only help one be better at the specific game they are playing, and not actually have any transferable skills.

I find it interesting that these were some of the findings, because in one of my classes this term where we learned lots about neuro-rehabilitation, this seemed to be a general finding about lots of different therapies. Despite the consistent effort to try and make a task, or a therapy transferable to real life, it is sometimes difficult to do so.

After showing my brother some of this research, he did agree that maybe his gaming was a little excessive, “but what’s a kid to do?”.

 

Works Cited:

Bavelier, Daphne, et al. “Brains on Video Games.” Nature reviews.Neuroscience 12.12 (2011): 763.

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