The Impact of Video Games: A Comprehensive Analysis of Effects

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of video games, examining both the positive and negative effects on individuals and society. It discusses the benefits such as improved decision-making skills, problem-solving abilities, enhanced socialization, and increased concentration. However, it also delves into the negative aspects, including the encouragement of violence, addiction, potential brain disorders, adverse effects on children's behavior and academic performance, and the risk of social isolation. The essay references various studies and research to support its claims, ultimately concluding that while video games offer certain advantages, their negative impacts often outweigh the positives, leading to issues like aggressive behavior, gaming addiction, and health-related problems. Desklib offers this essay as a study resource, alongside a wealth of other solved assignments and past papers.

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Video Games
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Video Games
Video games is a very exciting invention in the electronic media and with the passing time many
advancements has been made in it which has made it more entertaining as well as challenging
(Bourgonjon, Vandermeersche, Wever, Soetaert and Valcke, 2016). Nowadays playing video
games is one of the major part of young people’s life, it can also be counted as a very important
activity in their day to day life. All the graphics and sound effects give the player a real feel
while playing it they can even challenge themselves and the most fascinating thing is that the
player can maneuver or control everything that is happening in the video game thus making it
more exciting and enjoyable (Griffiths, Kuss and Ortiz de Gortari, 2017).
Playing video games has its own benefit and has a positive influence on people to an extent for
instance, playing video games helps improve the decision making skills because whoever is
playing the game has to come up with instant decisions and if the decision was wrong in
previous game then they will come up with improved decision in the next one and that is how
they learn from their mistake and thus coming up with a good decision each time they play the
video game and this is how the player come up with quick and creative decisions in a very short
time interval (Green and Seitz, 2015).
Another plus point is that the video games improve the ability to solve any problem. In a video
game the player is required to reach a final destination from the initial point and during the
whole journey the player has to cross so many hurdle, obstacles or any type of conflicts and to
overcome all these distractions the player needs to solve the problem in a given time limit and
then he or she has to come up with unique solutions to resolve the situation. It is kind of a brain
teaser, hence improving the way one solves problem.
Most of the games are two player games or more and when a player spend time playing with
another player it helps them to socialize more and therefore improving their social skills.
(Granic, Lobel and Engels, 2014). While playing a multiplayer game the former can come across
to so many persons and they might be from the same country or another but eventually they are
meeting on the same level with the help of video games along with improving social skills, the
multiplayer game also provides enriched team work because while playing the multiplayer
games, the person has to play in teams and any decision made while playing has to be made as a
team and therefore give the chance to work as a team.

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Another benefit of playing video game can be increased concentration, while playing the game
the player needs to focus on the game and it’s all aspects that allows the player to play the game
without any distraction and channeling all its concentration power on one thing (Boxer, Groves
and Docherty, 2015). The other benefit from this perspective can be seen in goal setting abilities.
When playing a video game, the player can only complete the game either by reaching the final
destination or by winning any battle no matter what the situation is because in the end player
wants to accomplish his or her goal with the help of different strategies and techniques and
executing them properly to attain the goal.
The player needs to be focused and should have a good hand and eye coordination in such a
video game that includes shooting or the games in which enemies are lurking in the corners. The
players are required to be attentive and keep track of everything happening, at the same time and
this can be achieved with a great coordination of hand and the eye. This ability helps the person
by improving their motor skills and attention skills visually. In such kind of games that needs a
strategy, the player has to flexible and multitasking therefore it develops a good flexibility in
people because they are required to change their tactics and that too quickly and this requires a
lot of mind and with all these kind of games the player or people can learn so many new and
different things, also it is so fascinating to see how video games develop the multitasking skills
in a person and allow him or her to work on their focusing skills.
.
Despite of all these positive influences of video games they have so many negative impacts on
the people too, mentioned as follow:
Along with improving motor skills, the shooting games also encourage violence and those who
play such kind of games are more prone to aggressive behaviors, violent thought and feelings
and decrease in socialization can be seen because such kind of violent games leaves a negative
impact on people and people become immune to it with a risk of becoming violent and show
very less or no empathy (Berger, 2017). Because of such games there arises emotional
callousness in people. According to some research it has been concluded that the violent video
game has worsened the nature of kids and also get awarded in many games for being violent and
on the top of that while playing the game people can control everything that is happening around

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and also they witness every killing, stabbing, fighting, shooting or kicking each other and all
such kind of brutal activities. Since the people are being awarded for participating actively in
such game, they are most likely to get affected from it (Quandt et al., 2015).
Other negative influence is addiction. In June of 2018 the world health organization declared the
video game addiction as a mental health disorder. Because of high graphics and good sound
effects, people easily get attracted to these video games and play continuously it for long time
can lead to gaming addiction which can cause depression and severe increase in anxiety level
along with disconnecting socially. Addiction of gaming can also cause brain disorders like
depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer disease etcetera (Granic, Lobel and Engels, 2014). It can
also cause behavioral disorders along with hyperactivity that causes attention problems. The
biggest adverse effect that video games have is one the kids and young generations it effect in
their day to day life, for instance affecting their school performances, let it be studies or sports, it
can also affect their behavior and can lead to less interaction with the family and aggressive
behaviors by playing violent games that can give rise to problems like bullying etcetera teaching
them wrong values and the child get confused between the reality and the vitality. Another
harmful factor can be bad health because playing lots of video games can affect the child’s health
adversely like giving rise to obesity and some brain disorders as discussed earlier. One of the
major negative point is cursing while playing game and it can lead to the kids learning up bad
language and worst behaviors from others online (Libertus, et al 2017).
Too much of anything is harmful and in this case spending too much time on video games
develops an impulsive behavior in the individuals and in some cases they even start daydreaming
and develop anxieties (Rosen, et al 2014). Playing video games for a long time is just wasting
time and instead of doing something productive people get stuck to it like an addiction. Instead
of going out the kid’s just play video games which result into poor health and health related issue
and they do not socialize more with the outside world (Eichenbaum, Bavelier and Green, 2014).
That is real and just keep wandering in the vitality addiction of video games can create distance
between the person and his or her family creating interaction problems. They also develop an
impulsive behavior which is the main reason behind drifting apart from family and friends in this
case and getting themselves isolated from the real world and start living in the virtual world
without being able to differentiate between what is reality and what is fantasy.

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Although playing video games has its own benefit but if observed carefully the negative impact
of video games dominates over its positive influence. All these violent games creating an
aggressive behavior in people giving rise to many criminal activities and also zero socializing
skills in the person who play video games for a long time and getting addicted to it affects our
health adversely and give birth to so many disorders like obesity and brain disorders like
Alzheimer disease which is very serious (Robb, Garner, Collins and Nacke, 2017).
All the negativity in such games has a very bad influence over people leaving them with gaming
addiction and isolating them from everyone.

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References
Berger, A.A. (2017) Video games: A popular culture phenomenon. California: Routledge.
Bourgonjon, J., Vandermeersche, G., De Wever, B., Soetaert, R. and Valcke, M. (2016) Players’
perspectives on the positive impact of video games: A qualitative content analysis of online
forum discussions. new media & society, 18(8), pp.1732-1749.
Boxer, P., Groves, C.L. and Docherty, M. (2015) Video games do indeed influence children and
adolescents’ aggression, prosocial behavior, and academic performance: A clearer reading of
Ferguson (2015). Perspectives on psychological science, 10(5), pp.671-673.
Eichenbaum, A., Bavelier, D. and Green, C.S. (2014) Video games: Play that can do serious
good. American Journal of Play, 7(1), p.50.
Granic, I., Lobel, A. and Engels, R.C. (2014) The benefits of playing video games. American
psychologist, 69(1), p.66.
Green, C.S. and Seitz, A.R. (2015) The impacts of video games on cognition (and how the
government can guide the industry). Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
2(1), pp.101-110.
Griffiths, M.D., Kuss, D.J. and Ortiz de Gortari, A.B. (2017) Videogames as therapy: An
updated selective review of the medical and psychological literature. International Journal of
Privacy and Health Information Management, 5(2), pp.71-96.
Libertus, M.E., Liu, A., Pikul, O., Jacques, T., Cardoso-Leite, P., Halberda, J. and Bavelier, D.
(2017) The Impact of Action Video Game Training on Mathematical Abilities in Adults. AERA
Open, 3(4), pp. 23-45.
Quandt, T., Van Looy, J., Vogelgesang, J., Elson, M., Ivory, J.D., Consalvo, M. and Mäyrä, F.
(2015) Digital games research: A survey study on an emerging field and its prevalent debates.
Journal of Communication, 65(6), pp.975-996.
Robb, J., Garner, T., Collins, K. and Nacke, L.E. (2017) The impact of health-related user
interface sounds on player experience. Simulation & Gaming, 48(3), pp.402-427.
Rosen, L.D., Lim, A.F., Felt, J., Carrier, L.M., Cheever, N.A., Lara-Ruiz, J.M., Mendoza, J.S.
and Rokkum, J. (2014) Media and technology use predicts ill-being among children, preteens
and teenagers independent of the negative health impacts of exercise and eating
habits. Computers in human behavior, 35, pp.364-375.