Playing too much video games affect your health

Video games and screen addiction

Speaking of Health

Friday, July 1, 2022

Topics in this Post

Behavioral Health
Children's Health (Pediatrics)
Parenting
Pediatric Medicine

In an increasingly digital world, most people own multiple electronic devices with screens. However, many parents worry about the effects of screen use on themselves and their children.

With screens virtually everywhere, controlling a child's screen time can be challenging. How can you manage your children's screen time? How will you know if you or your children are addicted to screens or video games?

Is screen time damaging?

It's difficult to avoid screens completely, especially with their importance at work and school. However, excessive screen time can affect a persons mental, social and physical health.

Too much screen time has been linked to:

Obesity
Poor sleep or insomnia
Behavioral problems, including impulsive actions
Loss of social skills
Violence
Less time for play
Eye strain
Neck and back problems
Anxiety
Depression
Difficulties with work or school

Screen time can be engaging for people of all ages. This is because their brains process and react to the sensory input as if it were happening to them. For example, many people have cried, laughed or been startled while watching a movie. This same type of engagement is possible when a person plays a video game.

While playing a video game, the person's brain processes the scenario as if it were real. If the game depicts a dangerous or violent situation, the gamer's body reacts accordingly. This "fight-or-flight response" to that perceived danger is triggered by exposure to intense stimulation and violence in the game. Excessive video game use can lead to the brain being revved up in a constant state of hyperarousal.

Hyperarousal looks different for each person. It can include difficulties with paying attention, managing emotions, controlling impulses, following directions and tolerating frustration. Some adults or children struggle with expressing compassion and creativity, and have a decreased interest in learning. This can lead to a lack of empathy for others, which can lead to violence. Also, kids who rely on screens and social media to interact with others typically feel lonelier than kids who interact in person.

Chronic hyperarousal can have physical symptoms, as well, such as decreased immune function, irritability, jittery feelings, depression and unstable blood sugar levels. In children, some can develop cravings for sweets while playing video games. Combined with the sedentary nature of gaming, children's diet and weight can be negatively affected, as well. Sometimes children will even avoid stopping the game to go to the restroom, which can lead to hygiene issues.

How can gaming become an addiction?

An addiction is defined as a person's inability to control use of a substance or behavior, despite negative consequences. Some people who are engrossed in screen time or video games while ignoring other normal activities could be close to meeting this definition.

So why does this happen? The reward center in the brain releases dopamine in response to a pleasurable experience or hyperarousal. If a person experiences hyperarousal while playing video games, the brain associates the activity with dopamine. The person develops a strong drive to seek out that same pleasure again and again.

Dopamine is a powerful neurotransmitter in the brain. It helps sustain people's interest and attention, which is why it can hard for people to tear themselves away from a situation or behavior. It's also self-reinforcing. The more times people experience the behavior, the more dopamine is released, and the more driven they are to return to the behavior.

Symptoms of screen time or video game addiction

Similar to tobacco, alcohol or drugs, screen time or video games can become an addiction if it damages your health and relationships, and you are unable to control it.

Some symptoms could include:

Having intense urges for screen time or to play video games, and these urges block out other thoughts
Spending money on video games or screens, even though you can't afford it
Cutting back on social or recreational activities because of preference for screen time or video games
Continuing to play video games or participate in screen time, even though you know it's causing problems in your life, such as poor performance at school or work, or letting household responsibilities go
Displaying signs of irritability, anxiety or anger when forced to stop playing, even for brief periods of time
Lying to others about the extent of your use
Needing more screen time over time to get the same level of enjoyment
Neglecting your appearance, including lack of interest in grooming or clothing

Continued excessive use of screens can result in long-term or permanent changes in the brain that require extensive behavioral and medical treatment to reverse.

What can you do?

As your child grows, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work as well. Not all kids are the same when it comes to screens and technology. Some children can self-regulate and might even put the screens down to go outside without you prompting them. Other kids become noticeably more anxious and quicker to lose their tempers when they spend a lot of time on screens. You'll need to decide how much media to let your child use each day and what's appropriate.

Consider applying the same rules to your child's real and virtual environments. In both, play with your child, teach kindness, be involved, and know who your child's friends and what your child does with them. Also, keep in mind that the quality of the media your child is exposed to is more important than the type of technology or amount of time spent. Encourage active screen time over passive screen time.

Active screen time is when you are interacting with other people that you know or when you are cognitively or physically engaged. For example, play educational games, or games that require players to build something together. Other options are fitness-type games that require movement while playing. Passive screen time includes watching screens with minimal cognitive engagement, such as scrolling through social media, watching online videos or playing simple games.

Set reasonable limits for your child's screen time and video game types, especially if your child's use of screens hinders involvement in other activities.

Consider these tips:

Follow guidelines for screen time, such as those suggested by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Model healthy use of screens and video games. Consider unplugging when you first get home from work, at dinner and when driving. Model other methods of relaxation and entertainment, such as taking a walk, playing a game, having a dance party or reading a book.
Encourage a balance between screen time and activities that require in-person social interactions, such as family activities or extracurricular activities.
Create structured, screen-free times, such as during mealtimes, in the mornings and before bedtime.
Consider using apps that control the length of time your child can use a device.
Keep screens out of bedrooms.
Require that all devices be charged outside of bedrooms at night.
Learn about the game rating categories and only allow your children to play video games suitable for their ages.

If you're concerned about a child or loved one's use of screen time, consulting a behavioral or addictions specialist can help determine treatment options.

Edward Luker is a counselor in Psychiatry & Psychology in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

For the safety of our patients, staff and visitors, Mayo Clinic has strict masking policies in place. Anyone shown without a mask was either recorded prior to COVID-19 or recorded in a non-patient care area where social distancing and other safety protocols were followed.

Topics in this Post

Behavioral Health
Children's Health (Pediatrics)
Parenting
Pediatric Medicine

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The health effects of too much gaming

By: Peter Grinspoon, MD, Contributor

More than two-thirds of Americans play video games, also known as gaming. While gaming can be a fun distraction or hobby (and is even becoming a competitive sport on many college campuses), there are health risks that come from too much gaming. What are these harms, and what can be done about them?

Is there anything good about gaming?

Before discussing the harms of gaming, it is only fair to mention the benefits. Aside from being entertaining and a fun pastime, gaming can provide a way for people to interact with each other — a virtual community — as they work together toward completing common tasks. Our society suffers from an epidemic of loneliness, and gaming can be a vehicle to connect with others, including otherwise difficult-to-connect-with people in your life, such as kids, grandkids, or (I’ve seen this be quite helpful) with autistic children, who can have challenges with traditional modes of communication.

There is mixed research that there are some cognitive benefits to gaming, such as better control of one’s attention and improved spatial reasoning, though it isn’t entirely clear how much these benefits extend outside of the video game sphere into the real world. Finally, video games have medical applications, such as training people with degenerative diseases to improve their balance, helping adolescents with ADHD improve their thinking skills, or training surgeons on how to do technically complicated operations.

Gaming injuries

Repetitive stress injuries, or overuse injuries, are injuries that come from activities that involve repeated use of muscles and tendons, to the point that pain and inflammation develop. If these injuries are allowed to progress, numbness and weakness can develop, and permanent injury can result. Overuse injuries of the hands and arms are rampant among gamers.

One common example is carpel tunnel syndrome, which many gamers develop. Carpal tunnel syndrome, often seen in office workers, involves inflammation of a nerve in the wrist, which causes pain and numbness.

"Gamer’s thumb," which was previously called "PlayStation thumb" (or "nintendinitis" or "nintendonitis" when Nintendo was popular), occurs when the tendons that move the thumb become inflamed. The medical term for this is de Quervain’s tenosynovitis, and it can lead to swelling and limited movement. Gamers are also at risk for trigger finger, or stenosing tenosynovitis, which is when a finger gets stuck in the bent position due to chronic inflammation. Gamers can also get tennis elbow, a painful inflammation of the place where the tendon inserts into the bone on the outside of the elbow.

Gaming is also associated with obesity in teens and, plausibly, the same would be shown in adults, if studied. This is due to the obvious phenomenon that if a teen is sitting in front of a screen for hours every day, he or she isn’t getting much exercise. The obesity is also thought to be due to increased food intake while playing video games. According to a study in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, "a single session of video game play in healthy male adolescents is associated with an increased food intake, regardless of appetite sensations." The proposed mechanisms are that either the signals that indicate satiety (fullness) get impaired, or that the mental stress involved with playing video games activates the reward centers, which leads to increased food intake.

Vision problems are common complaints of gamers. The most common vision problem is eye strain, which can lead to headaches and poor concentration. Gaming has been reported to result in seizures, leading to warnings on the packaging.

Gaming addiction

Gaming has also been associated with psychological problems. It is still an open question whether video game addiction, or internet gaming disorder (IGD), is a unique syndrome. According to the American Psychological Association, IGD is defined as experiencing at least five of the following nine criteria over a 12-month period:

gaming preoccupation
withdrawal
tolerance
loss of interest in other activities
downplaying use
loss of relationship, educational, or career opportunities
gaming to escape or relieve anxiety, guilt, or other negative mood states
failure to control
continued gaming despite psychosocial problems.

According to one study from the American Journal of Psychiatry, between 0. 3% and 1.0% of Americans might have an internet gaming disorder. Treatments for this problem are a work in progress, as the disorder isn’t fully understood or agreed upon, but can include public health approaches such as education and harm reduction, stricter labeling on the packaging, as well as cognitive behavioral therapy. There are even support groups, such as Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous, which leverage the power of group support — also helpful in the treatment of other addictions — to the realm of gaming addiction.

Gaming has also been associated with sleep deprivation, insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders, depression, aggression, and anxiety, though more studies are needed to establish the validity and the strength of these connections. There has also been concern that exposure to the extreme violence that is commonly found in video games can desensitize teens and young adults to such violence, causing emotional problems and even leading to young people committing acts of violence.

Gaming in moderation

As with many other activities that have potential benefits and harms, moderation is the key. Most of the harms that come from gaming can be improved, if not avoided altogether, by limiting the number of hours spent in front of the screen, and by engaging in healthy activities like exercising, or socializing in the real world instead of the virtual game world.

Education is an essential key to injury prevention. Gamers need to be educated on how to protect their thumbs, wrists, and elbows, their waistlines, their emotional state, their sleep, and their eyes. Simple education around taking breaks, stretching, eating healthy snacks, and resting and icing your thumb, wrist, or elbow when it starts hurting can address injuries early, before they become significant. For the eyes, gamers can try the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, try to look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

In short, playing video games can be fun and a social activity when integrated into a healthy lifestyle that includes plenty of sleep, exercise, and good nutrition, rather than letting the game become your life.

The benefits of computer games: what can video games teach us?

The popularity of video games is growing every day, children and adults spend more time playing this activity, which makes us think about how to use gambling for good - primarily for learning

According to Knowable Magazine, certain types of video games can improve how the brain works when performing a narrow set of tasks. A number of studies have also shown their effectiveness in mastering a second language, learning mathematics and science. This is potentially good news for pupils and students, and for the millions of people who love to play or can't stop doing it.

The last phenomenon, by the way, is a long-standing cause for concern for parents, doctors and teachers. More than half of Russians (58%) believe that video games do more harm than good (according to VTsIOM data as of August 15, 2019), while noting a negative impact on the psyche and manifestations of aggressive behavior. Also, 54% of citizens have a bad attitude towards the passion for games of relatives.

According to various estimates, there are more than 2.3 billion gamers in the world (as of 2018), and two years ago the World Health Organization finally decided to include online and video game addiction in the list of diseases (ICD-11 will enter into force from 2022).

People (and not only young people) spend a lot of time playing games, and this is a fact that raises the challenge of turning this hobby into something more productive than mere entertainment and venting of negative emotions.

What to read/see on the topic:

25 best video games of the decade according to Meduza.
What are non-games and why (not) play them?
Video game addiction recognized as a mental disorder. What is wrong with it?
How Games Can Help Us Solve Real World Problems - TED talk by game designer Jane McGonigal.

The first studies on the effect of games on improving brain function

Initially, evidence that this is possible came from testing shooters. That much-criticized "shooter games" can be useful was noted by student Sean Green, who studied psychology at the University of Rochester. He gave the visual attention test to his friends, who showed amazing results. At first, Greene and his supervisor Daphne Bavelier chalked it up to some kind of mistake, because when Bavelier herself was tested, her result was normal. The difference between the participants in the experiment was that all of Green's friends devoted more than 10 hours a week to playing the Team Fortress Classic shooter.

Green and Bavelier then conducted another experiment, dividing a group of "gaming beginners" into two teams. The first one spent one hour a day playing the shooter for 10 days, the second spent the same amount of time playing the Tetris spatial puzzle.

Tests showed that the participants in the first group were better at focusing on objects of interest against a visually loaded background, and were also able to simultaneously track up to five moving objects. During other studies, it became known that "Tetris", in turn, improves the ability to spatial thinking and visual representation of two-dimensional objects.

Bavelier, now a cognitive researcher at the University of Geneva, notes that action gamers are better at navigating between divided attention (the ability of the brain to respond to stimuli at the same time) and focused attention (the ability to focus on the target stimulus). “It’s called attentional control, the ability to switch flexibly as needed,” she says. Switching between tasks is also facilitated by playing All You Can ET, a special cognitive simulator in which players must provide certain food and drinks to aliens in a timely manner.

Useful links for a deeper understanding of the topic:

The work of the Center for Applied Research and Development of St. Petersburg State University on the impact of computer games on cognitive functions, as well as the psyche, motivation and social behavior of a person (spoiler: games with elements of violence do not lead to antisocial behavior, and the stereotype of the isolated, unsociable gamer is wrong).
University of California, Irvine study on the effect of online exercise on older adults' multitasking skills.
TED talk by gamification expert Gabe Zichermann "How do games make kids smarter?"
An article by an employee of the Moscow Center for Video Game Research at PostNauka about how video games help to pass school exams better and why gamification makes us work harder.

Pitfalls in incorporating games into the classroom

Green, now a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, notes that games can help train professionals whose jobs involve increased visual attention, such as surgeons, law enforcement, or the military. The latter, by the way, is confirmed even at a very high level. “The ability to quickly absorb information, react and coordinate actions, while remaining calm under pressure, is often a sign of people who play well,” a spokesman for the British Air Force told the BBC.

But at the same time, Green also acknowledges that the real-life benefits of playing hours of conventional Call of Duty may be limited: if time for video games crowds out time for other tasks, other skills may suffer over time.

It is also important that the results obtained in the experiments are very specific and valid only within the framework of the task: that is, "shooters" do not improve spatial thinking, as in the case of "Tetris", but, on the contrary, it does not improve visual attention. In turn, the educator and psychologist Richard Mayer even states that, having researched this topic for a long time, he did not find convincing evidence that the so-called brain training games really helped to significantly improve memory, attention, or decision-making speed.

Economics of education Heads of IT companies on education: "Every child should become an expert"

Another controversial issue: how to use (and whether to use) video games in the classroom? In it, researchers also disagree: for example, according to Bavelier, brain-enhancing computer games can be integrated into school classes to add a “honey spoon” to complex subjects and boring programs. Although "shooters" probably won't work for this: of course, they can hardly be offered to elementary school students.

“It could be a game where the doctor has to choose the right medicine to save the world. But it should not be associated with death, violence or zombies, ”she said. But the professor also wonders if children can transfer the cognitive skills learned from games to other, more real situations.

Sean Green, in turn, notes the complexity and high cost of creating games. High-quality, effective and compelling games can cost as much as the creation of a blockbuster, the psychologist noted.

Maximum involvement is the advantage of games to be exploited

Still, the prospects for introducing video games into the classroom are encouraging, despite the lack of research on any advantages of this teaching method over existing ones. Even if we assume that “brain trainers” are overrated, we cannot dismiss the fact that games are really highly addictive and involve in the process.

“The most important feature of games is their motivational power,” Mayer says. “And we want to use it.” Brain scientists, educators and game developers need to work more closely together to create immersive games that help sharpen cognitive skills and have fun. As Bavelier adds, a child's brain is capable of remembering hundreds of Pokémon and their abilities. Imagine if they would start studying the stars in the sky with the same enthusiasm!

Writer Greg Toppo, in his book The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter, agrees that games can help improve student engagement, bring lessons to life, and also allow them to be adapted according to the needs of each particular class. Games can also be used to reward students for consistent practice, perseverance, and out-of-the-box solutions.

In addition, games can help improve soft skills. “There are a lot of soft skills that gamers can use in their professional lives, such as teamwork, problem solving and strategic planning,” said Ryan Gardner, regional director of Hays Recruitment. True, if you play games without thinking about the skills that you can learn from them and then use them, it is unlikely that you will be able to use your hobby to improve your career prospects in the future.

Computer games and eSports education: first steps in Russia

Currently, online and video games are offered to be used (or, more rarely, already used) as part of training sessions and as independent lessons. So, in June 2019, the Russian Ministry of Education proposed to introduce computer games and mobile applications as teaching aids in schools and colleges over a five-year period.

In the summer, there were also ideas about singling out separate classes for eSports and other games. In August, experts from the ANO Internet Development Institute (IRI) advised including Dota 2, Hearthstone, Dota Underlords, FIFA 19 in electives for schoolchildren, World of Tanks, Minecraft and CodinGame. The selection criteria were popularity, updates of games, their compliance with domestic eSports requirements, and age marking 14+. In addition, the selected games, according to IRI experts, should develop the students' skills in team play, strategic thinking, logic and reaction speed, as well as reveal their creative potential. The Ministry of Education rejected the idea to include such subjects in the school curriculum: according to the department, they can lead to overwork of students. Instead, schools were asked to introduce esports lessons at their discretion.

How to make money on esports

Meanwhile, interest in esports in the world is only growing. The global market in 2018 reached $775 billion, and, according to the PwC report, its revenue will increase by an average of 18.3% every year. 22 million people watched esports broadcasts in Russia, which put our country in third place in the world in this indicator.

Not too long ago, the idea that you could make a living playing games seemed unrealistic. Now, some players are able to financially support their family and see this as a good career opportunity.

Athletes' incomes range from $2,000 to $15,000. In addition to team salaries, a solid amount of money can be brought to a gamer by prizes for winning tournaments, donations (voluntary donations from viewers) on streams (online broadcasts of what is happening on a computer or console) , sponsor support, and advertising.

At the same time, it is not so easy for Russians to become an e-sports player now: this educational area is just beginning to gain momentum, while in the EU, the USA and some Scandinavian countries, such educational institutions have been functioning for a long time. You can learn with the help of online services that teach gaming skills, online courses, cyber-schools, several university programs (such are, in particular, the HSE and the Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sports, Youth and Tourism). There is also an esports faculty at Synergy University. In general, the FCC of the Russian Federation, founded in 2000, is responsible for the massive development of e-sports in Russia.

According to Elena Avdeeva, director of the first Moscow school with classes in mind sports, the skills acquired through computer games will help a child in any profession. “Moreover, esports and new technologies open the way to the professions of the future: smart home architect, drone operator, esports journalist, cyber trainer, vulnerability finder, virtual reality artist, neural network developer, esports athlete, and so on,” she noted earlier in conversation with "Evening Moscow".

What else to read / watch / listen to on the topic:

Who are “boosters” and how do they make money helping novice gamers
The 15 most influential people in esports. Forbes rating
Young gamers around the world spend more than three hours a week watching other people play video games online (according to Inc. 2018). What makes them do it: The Wired material and The Verge
The Guardian: How video games in schools can help teachers and parents

However, with the introduction of new esports areas and the introduction of video games in the classroom, a number of difficult tasks arise: firstly, the idea of how to teach new disciplines and effectively use gaming opportunities in the classroom has not yet been fully formed. Secondly, it is not entirely clear how to minimize the risks associated with a long stay at the computer: these are problems with vision, overweight, posture, social, offline interaction, and possible computer addiction. Despite this, online and video games have good prospects for gaining a foothold in the educational process, and, perhaps, very soon parents will not scold their children for staying at the computer for a long time, but will begin to take part in these games and help to get the most out of the process. .

How video games really affect violence

Tragedies involving teenagers are often blamed on video games. Many believe that shooters and fighting games provoke violence. Studies say that games reduce stress and help socialize

What conclusions did different researchers draw about the influence of video games:

Violent video games immediately provoke aggressive behavior
Games exacerbate aggression in hostile adolescents
Teenagers who study worse like to spend time with video games
Violent video games affect children more than family and peer problems
The short-term impact of games is much smaller than originally thought
It's not games that make children violent, it's domestic violence and bullying at school
Only 0. 4% of different forms of aggression can be caused by violent video games
Popular game releases distract gamers from crime
Violent video games improve stress tolerance
Games help teenagers maintain relationships with peers

Read more about these studies below.

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Prohibit and restrict

Russian deputies several times proposed to fight against video games by law. The reasons for such proposals were the massacres that were organized by teenagers in schools. For example, in Moscow in 2014, in Kerch in 2018 and in Kazan in 2021.

US politicians also voiced restrictive initiatives. In 1993, Senator Joe Lieberman and Herb Cole staged a series of congressional hearings over Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, deeming them too violent. After lengthy litigation, game makers had to adopt an age-labeled rating system for their products. Also, companies began to warn buyers about scenes of violence and other problematic content in games (for example, drinking alcohol or sex scenes).

Since 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), a non-governmental, non-profit organization, has been responsible for labeling in games. Before a game is released to the market, creators are required to submit a game script to the ESRB and describe episodes that include violence, sex, swearing, drinking, and so on. Based on the results, the ESRB assigns an age rating.

ESRB Rating System

Lieberman continued to fight against violence in games and further - in 1997 he actively proposed to ban the game Postal. The senator even allegedly called the game one of the three worst things that exists in American society. In his opinion, the other two are Marilyn Manson and a Calvin Klein underwear ad. Postal disappeared from stores, but still became a cult classic. In the second part of the game, which was released in 2003, the developers left "hello" to Lieberman - the senator is mentioned several times, and on the wall in one of the locations you can see the poster "Lieberman, God sees your lies."

Another game that caused a lot of criticism from US officials was Doom. In 1999, there was a massacre at the Columbine School in Colorado. Two high school students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, used guns and improvised explosive devices to kill 13 people and injure 20 more. Both young men were passionate about Doom and created custom levels for it. Over the years, US Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have asked to check the connection between tragedies involving teenagers and the content of scenes of violence.

Relationship between violent games and aggression

After the tragedy at the Columbine School, various American researchers began to look for a connection between violent games and aggression that spills out in the real world. For example, in one of the first studies on this topic, University of Oklahoma professor Paul Lynch found that games affect initially hostile teenagers more than ordinary ones.

In 2007, psychology professor Douglas Gentile conducted a survey among schoolchildren and concluded that children who play violent video games have a 73% higher risk of developing increased aggressiveness compared to those who play both hard and quieter games. And in comparison with those students who do not play violent games at all, the figure is 263% higher.

One of the main critics of video games for violence has been Craig Anderson, a professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, who has been working on this issue since the early 2000s. According to him, violent games cause arousal and negative emotions, increase children's knowledge of how aggression works, and reduce social skills. The professor also found a connection between low grades and love of games. In a 2007 paper, he and colleague Brad Bushman compared the effects of video games on aggressiveness to cigarettes, which cause lung cancer.

In 2010, Anderson presented a study showing that games make children more aggressive, less caring, regardless of age, gender, or culture. For work, the professor analyzed 130 research reports from 130,000 examples from around the world. Another Anderson study from 2012 found that games had a stronger effect on young people's levels of aggression than living with abusive parents, violent TV content, low IQ, and substance use.

Family problems and bullying

Along with studies that showed a correlation between the level of aggression and violent games, scientific works began to appear that criticized this point of view.

In 2008, Stetson University psychology professor (formerly also at Texas A&M University) Christopher Ferguson accused one of Anderson's studies of misinformation and exaggeration. Later, Ferguson published several papers on the subject, defending games from accusations and emphasizing that the child is much more influenced by factors such as domestic violence.

Illinois State University professor Joseph Hilgard has also repeatedly criticized Anderson for being biased. In his opinion, the short-term effect of aggression from games is much less than his opponent claimed in his works. In 2019, Hilgard and colleagues conducted a study in which 275 students (all men) played first-person shooters. At the end of the gaming session, the scientists found no tendency to aggressive behavior.

In 2014, Ferguson, together with psychologist and professor at the University of Münster, Malte Elson, presented a study that spans 25 years of studying the connection between video games and increased levels of violence. In it, they again criticized the ideas of Anderson, Bushman and other scientists, urging them to carefully present their arguments and not to panic. Elson and Ferguson emphasize that with each new generation, people are becoming less aggressive, despite the fact that they devote a lot of time to the Internet and games. According to researchers, the likelihood of aggressive behavior increases in the presence of external factors. For example, children who have experienced abuse from parents or peers are more likely to behave aggressively even when there is minimal stress.

In 2017, Ferguson, along with fellow psychologist Patrick Markey, published an article and later a book titled Moral Combat: Why War on Games is Wrong. In 2018, they wrote a column in Variety recounting the main points of the book and criticizing politicians for attacking video games.

“You can assume that violent video games increase minor forms of aggression by about 40-50%. Even if you are a little skeptical, you can assume that the effect is at least 10%. You are wrong. On average, studies show that, at best, only 0.4% of minor forms of aggression can be caused by video games,” Marki and Ferguson write.

According to the authors of the column, attitudes towards video games depend on the age of scientists - the older they are, the more confident that games affect the level of aggression . Markey and Ferguson also believe that politicians talk about the dangers of video games in order to distract citizens from gun control.

It’s not just the United States that advocates for games – Oxford University experts Andrew Przybylski and Netta Weinstein published a study in 2019 that found no connection between virtual and real violence. The authors of the work analyzed the results obtained from two thousand people. One group included 14- and 15-year-olds, and the other group included their parents and guardians. According to Przybylski and Weinstein, scientists who previously allegedly established a correlation are spreading panic and biased interpretation of the data.

Benefits of video games

Researchers who deny the connection between games and increased aggression find beneficial aspects of such leisure. For example, Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson, authors of Grand Theft Childhood, write that play—including violence—helps children be more creative and has a positive effect on their social skills and emotional development. In addition, with the help of games, teenagers cope with stress and release rage.

“By focusing on such a simple but unimportant goal as video game violence, parents and politicians are ignoring the more important and already known causes of violence, including social, behavioral, economic, biological and mental factors,” the authors of the book conclude.

In 2015, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey among teenagers who are addicted to video games. The children admitted that this pastime helps them to spend time with friends and make new ones. 36% of respondents said that they met new friends through games. Also, 89% of teenagers play with friends.

The socializing function of games manifested itself especially clearly during the lockdown that various countries experienced in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thanks to the Internet, children and teenagers could spend time with their peers at least in online games. Such leisure has replaced them with sports clubs, parks and playgrounds. Video games give players the opportunity to develop conflict resolution techniques, learn how to interact with friends, and experience different emotions.

In addition, researchers believe that games with elements of violence not only do not provoke crimes in reality, but also reduce them, as they give relaxation. For example, a study by Scott Cunningham, Benjamin Engelstetter, and Michael R. Ward found a link between the popularity of interactive entertainment and a decrease in youth street crime. Scientists have come to the conclusion that gamers are losing interest in vandalism, robbery and robbery.

In 2014, Patrick Markey and his wife Charlotte Markey published a study that found a link between a decrease in crime and the release of new games in series such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty.

Games have a positive effect on stress resistance. In Ferguson's The Hitman Study, students were given a difficult task, after which they were tested for their level of aggressiveness. It turned out that subjects who preferred violent video games felt less depressed and dissatisfied than students who did not enjoy such games.

Learn more