Sherod 1

Joshua Sherod

Professor Christy Trotter

English 1201

22 March 2019

The Brain and Video Games

How many times have we heard that video games rot the brain? Have your relatives or

friends ever told you that video games are bad for you? I have a lot of personal experience with

video games. I have been playing video games since I was 6 years old. My father and I would

play the Call of Duty franchise for hours at a time. I did research on this topic because I wanted

to get facts about what video games actually do for the brain. Video games are a difficult

research topic because there are so many variables that need to be considered before determining

if they are good or bad for the players. There are so many misconceptions that come from video

games like how they are detrimental to the thinking process or stunt young children’s learning.

They actually do the exact opposite; video games help the brain in many ways including

increased problem-solving, social, and cognitive skills. Video games should be utilized more

often by all ages to increase cooperative social interaction, enforce good academic achievements,

produce moral problem-solving skills, replace negative emotion with more positive attitudes, and

enhance brain function and cognitive processes.

First, video games can be used to increase cooperative social interaction. When people

are playing, they often play online with other real players from around the world. This alone can

greatly enhance cooperation skills in all players regardless of age. In Ryan Rogers’ book called

How Video Games Impact Players, he writes about how video games enhance cooperation.
 Sherod 2

Players will spend hours collecting resources for a game to progress and share this with other

players so that they can progress too, which contributes to social bonding (Rogers 39). In games,

players are willing to trust each other with collecting these valuable resources. This helps build

cooperative skills in children and young adults. Children gain skills in other behaviors such as

sharing, emotional awareness, and empathy. Rogers wrote “In another study, middle school

students listed their favorite video games as well as how often they played these games and how

often these games required players to help or hurt others” (Rogers 41). This revealed that players

who played social video games exhibited more social behaviors such as sharing, cooperation,

empathy, and emotional awareness. Players exhibit sharing as they share experience and

gameplay resources with other players; they exhibit emotional awareness and empathy when

they make choices and communicate with other players. This helps to form relationships and

human connections. These connections are exercised through video games; in a study that

Rogers found, these video games forged a connection between the player and their chosen

character. This resulted in the players engaging in charitable behaviors. These human

connections strengthen the basic skills to form connections outside of the virtual world. This

helps the players bond with other people in real life. These connections can not only be formed

between players of the same age, but they can also be formed between children and adults, such

as family members. Emily Sohn, an author for Science News, came to the conclusion that video

games could bring adults and kids closer together; this can spark a relationship through the child

and adult in which they can learn from each other (Sohn) There are plenty of games that can

bring families close together such as Super Mario, Just Dance, Guitar Hero, and others. The

bonding between family members can help children socialize with others and build stronger
 Sherod 3

connections. Overall, video games should be used to strengthen relationships and build

cooperative skills.

Next, video games help players with their academic achievements. The picture above this

paragraph shows a fictional character, Homer Simpson, and an X-ray of his brain. In the X-ray

his brain is small and the words next to the picture are “Video games shrink your brain? No.

Don’t Panic.” This shows the audience a picture of a small brain assuming that it is what they

think happens to the brain after playing video games. The picture then tells the audience that they

do not have to panic because video games do not hurt the brain. One thing that they help with is

increasing brain plasticity. Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to form or shape the brain in

different ways like a clay sculpture. Rogers suggests “playing commercial games can increase

brain plasticity” (Rogers 29). Basically, saying that brains can be formed and molded especially

at a young age. With children playing games, their brains are molding and shaping to increase

development in the brain. This helps children learn different behaviors from activities in their life

such as school, sports, and more. This also helps them learn rules and feedback from teachers or

authoritative figures. In video games, players have to do exactly what the game wants them to
 Sherod 4

do. Some games let players roam more than others, but every game has its own purpose and sets

of rules to follow. This can help children learn to listen to the authorities in their life just like

they do in video games. This system of learning rules is called “feedback;” which is training the

user of the game to respond to certain commands or goals. This skill can be translated to an

academic setting where children have to raise their hand before speaking or ask to use the

bathroom. This give children a better understanding for the rules that schools will have. Video

games also help develop the skills that the children will be needing in school; video games teach

players and children how to use their “cognitive research” skills. These are skills that train

children to use what they already know to solve a problem. This can help children to retain

information that they are taught and help them use the skills to solve problems. This could

greatly improve academic abilities in children and make the teacher’s job easier. If the student

can retain the information quicker and easier, the teacher can move on to another subject and

move at a faster pace. Single player games can help with children’s academic pace too. A single

player game is a game that the player plays by themselves with no contact with other players.

These games can help boost their academic scores. Linda Searing, a journalist for the

Washington Post, made the point that children and teenagers who played single player or solitary

games tended to increase academic skills and have more friends than others who do not play

these games (Searing). She also found that there is no connection between violent video games

and real world violence or conflict (Searing). Her research states that violent games do not have

a negative effect on the emotions of the child and does not give them negative or aggressive

emotions. Stating that video games cause children to be more violent and have more aggressive

tendencies is a common misconception. Most people think that video games make children more

aggressive and hurt their reading and writing capabilities, but both of those are false. Video
 Sherod 5

games actually increase reading skills and do not have a known effect on writing skills. In her

article, Sohn states that “video games enhance reading skills” (Sohn). She talked about the game

Animal Crossing and how player act in the game. In Animal Crossing, the players will write

messages to their fellow teammates and talk to the animals. This helps them start out at a higher

reading level than their grade, even if they do not like to read in the first place. All of these

points tie academics together and portray how video games help and strengthen the brain in

school.

Next, video games can lead to choices that require moral problem-solving skills from the

players. Moral problem-solving skills are skills that require the player to take their decision into

heart. In some video games, players can make choices which can result in a non-playable

character’s (NPC) feelings to change toward the player. Some choices can even lead in NPCs

dying. This gives the player a choice that they have to make, and this choice is often well thought

out and heart breaking. In his book, Rogers agrees that the choices in games that the the players

had to make had an impact on players. Some video games make the player make very intense or

controversial choices and when those players committed violent acts on others the felt sympathy

and guilt (Rogers 67). This bit from Roger’s book gives a good synopsis of the moral choices

and how they affect the player. If the player makes a bad decision for no reason, they will feel

guilt for the NPC. These games that require moral problem-solving are often not violent games.

These games require more of a thinking process while playing the game. These games are not

games that thrive for high scores; they are games that make the mind think about the choices and

opportunities they have for the characters they play. Players feel responsible for their characters

like they are in the character’s shoes. When Rogers was doing research for his book, he

understood that “Lewis, Weber, and Bowman (2008) found that players tend to feel responsible
 Sherod 6

for their characters when they feel connected to them. This should include making ethical

decisions that comply with the character’s player’s perspective and interests” (Rogers 68). The

player shows compassion for the characters that they play as or play alongside. Not only does it

make one feel responsible for the character, but the games make them worry for his/her

character’s fate. In these moral problem-solving games, such as Telltale Games, there are mass

amounts of choices made throughout the game. When Emily Sohn was writing about James Gee,

an American researcher, she offered that games offer tons of choices for the player to make.

These players have to conquer many moral problems and develop social skills; these skills can

be applied to real life. Gee asked if a game would be fun if you only had good choices. The

answer to the question is that a game would not be fun because there is no wrong choice and all

you can do is win (Sohn). Gee knew that these games are heart breaking if the player made the

wrong choice, but that it what makes them a game. A game is not fun if the only option is to win;

if there is no way to lose at the game, then there is no incentive to keep playing the game. These

choices that players have to make require the players brain to be active and aware. It requires the

player to always be one step ahead of the games. This can expand the brain and make the player

academically inclined compared to their non-gaming counterpart.

In addition, video games also have a wide range of behavioral benefits such as mood

management. Video games help keep all different moods at a normal level. Without mood

management, a person can be extra aggressive toward others, depressed or anxious about

themselves, or over confident in their abilities. Video games help with these problems in many

ways; first, video games provide enjoyment in the players. The players of these games play them

because they want to have fun. It is the equivalent of a boy or girl going outside to play with

their friends. In How Video Games Impact Players, Rogers studies how the players of video
 Sherod 7

games find enjoyment in those games. He talks about how “game attributes related to gameplay

were more closely associated with enjoyment while game attributes related to character and story

were more closely associated with a meaningful game experience” (Rogers 51). While moral

choice games were more associated with a meaningful game experience, most games are

associated with the enjoyment that the player can get from the games. This associates to real life

when a person has a profound connection to an event in their life. This event brings enjoyment to

that person, and video games help the players simulate that enjoyment. This enjoyment could

also be derived from the mass amounts of dopamine in the system of the gamer. Dopamine is a

neurotransmitter, a chemical responsible for forming signals between the nerve cells of the brain.

This can increase blood flow and bring enjoyment to the players of the game. Steven Johnson is

an author who also wrote a biographical piece of James Gee’s research on video games and the

brain. From his studies he found that dopamine was transmitted while playing these video games.

The answer may have to do with the neurotransmitter dopamine. A number of studies
have revealed that game playing triggers dopamine release in the brain, a finding that
makes sense given the instrumental role that dopamine plays in the way the brain
handles both reward and exploration. Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at the Falk
Center for Molecular Therapeutics at Northwestern University, calls the dopamine
system the brain's "seeking" circuitry, which propels us to explore new avenues for
reward in our environment. The game world is teeming with objects that deliver
clearly articulated rewards: more life, access to new levels, new equipment, new
spells. Most of the crucial work in game interface design revolves around keeping
players notified of potential rewards available to them and how much those rewards
are needed. (Johnson)
Johnson found through research that just like any other electronic device, such as cellphones,

tablets, and computers, video games cause a mass increase of dopamine in the body. This shows

that players get their enjoyment and “addiction” to these games from the dopamine that is being

produced inside their body. These games can also have effects on psychological needs that help

to manage the player’s moods effectively. The psychological differences in players do not stop
 Sherod 8

there though. Depending on the type of game they were playing, players could have different

effects on their body. Bavelier, a scientist and researcher of neuroscience, and Searing, a reporter

at the Washington Post, said in their articles that players who played multiplayer and competitive

games seemed to have less internalized problems, such as anxiety, depression, and more while

social games led to more helping behaviors (Bavelier et, al). Knowing this, we can only infer that

every different genre and playstyle of gaming can have effects on the gamer. There is a lot that

still hasn’t been uncovered by researchers because games are such a broad subject. On top of all

of that, video games help your brain simulate life situations. Video games are just simulations of

what could happen; these video games, violent or not, can prepare our brain for reality and what

situations could happen in real life. Alison Motluk, journalist, talked about a German professor,

Niels Birbaumer, who stated that these video games are training our brain to react to these

events. This gives our brain a pattern to react to whenever the players encounter a similar

situation (Motluk).

Multitasking is also an effect of playing video games. Multitasking is defined as dealing

with more than one task at the same time. Dr. Anguera, an assistant professor as UCFS,

conducted a study with his team on multitasking. The team took adults for 20-79 evenly

throughout each age group. They were each sat down to play a game called Neuroracer.

Neuroracer involves a car traveling down a windy road. While you try to control the car, a

question will pop up randomly. The player must try to answer the question quickly and correctly

while they also try not to crash the car. The first study found that the percentage of successful

multitasking they were doing decreased as the age of the subjects increased. For example,

subjects that were in their twenties did 10 percent better than subjects in their thirties. For the
 Sherod 9

second experiment, Anguera wanted to see if there was any room for improvement on the adults.

Anguera took a hand full of adults for his next experiment.

We assessed the impact of training with NeuroRacer in a longitudinal experiment that

involved randomly assigning 46 naive older adults (60–85 years old; 67.1 6 4.2 (mean
age 6 s.d.)) to one of three groups: multitasking training (MTT; n 5 16), single task
training (STT; n 5 15) as an active control, or no-contact control (NCC; n 5 15). Training
involved playing NeuroRacer on a laptop at home for 1 h a day, 3 times a week for 4
weeks (12 h of training in total), with all groups returning for a post-training assessment
after 1 month, and a follow-up assessment after 6 months. (Anguera et al.)
In this experiment, the results from pre to post training were that the subjects from 60-85 had a

48 percent increase in skill of multitasking. Basically, this study showed that the subjects who

consistently played this game for weeks saw more of an increase in skill than the subjects who

didn’t. This shows that Neuroracer gave an increase of skill in multitasking for those who played

it, so any game that requires multitasking will have a same effect on the brain as Neuroracer did.

Finally, video games help with brain development and motor skills of the player. The

brain is developed slowly through a person’s life all the way up until they are 25 years old.

Video games can help progress the development of the brain especially in earlier stages of the

brain like during elementary and teenager years. When Searing was writing about the researchers

one of them even stated that video gaming may be one of the few activities that help children and

teenagers develop and have a healthy childhood if moderated (Searing). Basically, the researcher

said that as long as children are not playing video games all of the time every day, games can be

good for the child’s development. As long as video games are used in moderation, they can be

used to boost the learning ability of children and make it easier for them to focus and

comprehend what the teacher is saying to the student. Along with development of their brain,

children can learn and perfect skills such as coordination and visual skills with video games.

Sohn found this in her research of the topic that visual skills and coordination are increased when
 Sherod 10

playing video games. Visual skills are any skills such as peripheral vision and monitoring your

surroundings or keen sense of sight. Most of these researchers found that when players played

the video games, they started to gain better peripheral vision and better sight for movement on

the screen. The video games helped the players focus on their goals in the video game and how

to reach them. These goals may be difficult, but the gamer will reach it. Johnson said that if we

are to understand why games can have positive impacts on the brain, we must look past the idea

that video games improve hand-eye coordination. Majority or game are not simply difficult

because they challenge manual dexterity, but instead the challenge the player’s mental dexterity.

A best-selling game, The Sims, does not involve any hand-eye coordination or quick reflexes. All

the player has to do is manage a household of character with unique drives, personalities,

capabilities, and skills (Johnson, Steven). Games are challenging for the mind. The mind tries

every possible way to find a solution for the puzzle and sometimes it just cannot find the

solution. For example, in the game Tomb Raider, the main protagonist, Laura Croft, goes on

adventures and through many obstacles. While she does have to fight her way through a lot of

enemies, there are a lot more challenging puzzles that the player must solve with only the

previous information they have been given. This is an example of a game that not only

challenges the physical dexterity of the player, but also the mental capacity. One final thing that

video games do is that they do the brain’s job for it. This can help the brain to develop those

skills better and push the brain to grow. As James Gee said in Johnson’s article, video games in a

way do what the brain does every day. A video game is a simulation with a specific set outcome

that it can predict will happen. Video games basically simulate what is going to happen just like

the brain does. The human brain is always trying to simulate how the day will play out.

Everybody tries to map out their entire day at some point or another and video games are
 Sherod 11

comparative to the brain because they do the exact same thing. In a way, our brain is a video

game that starts over every day with a new outcome.

Now others might say that video games hurt the brain or rot it away; some even say that

video games make children grow up to be more violent. Millions of children play video games

every day. They go home after school and play for hours on end. While this can help develop

social skills, emotions, and brain function, there are also some negatives about playing video

games. First, video games can make children more violent according to some sources. This all

depends on the type of game the child is playing though. A child can play a racing game without

having violent thoughts, but a child who plays violent video games might show signs of

aggression. Video games cannot make children more violent, but they can activate the violence

in the child. Not all children who play violent video games start to show signs of aggression,

however there are a select few. This is because games aren’t infecting the children with anger

problems; they are simply stirring up the aggression if it exists in the child. Everyone gets angry

from time to time, but true aggression is physically displaying that anger whether it be through

physical assault on themselves or others or a pile of stress and anxiety. This can happen in

children or adults; some adults may play video games for the first time and have the same

problem. These children or adults are essentially sticks of dynamite waiting for the fuse to be lit.

Video games, like many other causes of anger or stress, are the light that will activate the bomb.

Anderson and Dill even talked about how they don’t know if the video games cause this. This

problem could arise because the aggressive people are attracted to the violent games. The second

way video games negatively affect the users is how they distract children from their academics

and school work. While video games can help to increase brain capacity and sharpen skills

students will need in school, they can also be a giant distraction. Video games can distract
 Sherod 12

students because the students would rather be playing video games and having fun than doing

homework. This can harm the child’s learning abilities without proper guidance. This can be

because they can be classified as addicted to video games and the internet. While the internet is

not a traditional addiction like drugs or alcohol, children and adults can start to show symptoms

of withdrawal from a lack of usage. This can cause many problems with brain development and

learning ability because it will be hard for children to learn when they are reluctant to study or do

their homework. In Bavelier’s article, many of the researchers working with Bavelier thought

that video games should be classified as an addiction. They said that 1 in 5 day to day gamers,

which is about 4-10% of children, meet the medical criteria to be defined as ‘addicted’ (Bavelier

et al.). This addiction can be very detrimental to the learning process and start to make children

fall behind because of it. However, although this is a problem that could drastically effect

children and adults, it can also be easily fixed. As long as children are monitored by parents and

told when they must do their studying and school work addiction should not be a problem and

wouldn’t get in the way of the child’s learning. Overall, even though these are very serious

points that could show how video games are bad for players of all ages I think that these things

can be easily avoided with the right guidance and supervision. The positives of video games

outweigh the negatives in this case, but there is still much research to be done on the topic before

all effects of video games can be uncovered.

In conclusion, video games should be utilized more often by all ages to increase

cooperative social interaction, enforce good academic achievements, develop moral problem -

skills, replace negative emotion with more positive attitudes, and enhance brain function and

cognitive processes. Although, video games have negative effects on the brain, the positives

outweigh them. Video games affect the brain in so many ways that researchers haven’t even
 Sherod 13

explored yet. There are so many parts of the brain and so many factors to take into play that it is

hard to assume how video game do or do not affect their players. It is interesting to see all of the

information that researchers have come up with even if it has only scratched the surface.
 Sherod 14

Works Cited

Anguera, J. A., et al. “Video Game Training Enhances Cognitive Control in Older Adults.”

Nature, vol. 501, no. 7465, Sept. 2013, pp. 97–101. EBSCOhost,

http://sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr

ue&db=a9h&AN=90095737&site=ehost-live. Accessed 21 March 2019.

Bavelier, Daphne, et al. “Brains on Video Games.” Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, vol. 12, no.

12, Nov. 2011, pp. 763–768. EBSCOhost,

http://sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr

ue&db=a9h&AN=67327763&site=ehost-live. Accessed 21 March 2019.

Johnson, Steven. “Your Brain on Video Games.” Discover, vol. 26, no. 7, July 2005, pp. 38–43.

EBSCOhost,

http://sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr

ue&db=a9h&AN=17321031&site=eds-live. Accessed 21 March 2019.

Motluk, Alison. “Do Games Prime Brain for Violence?” New Scientist, vol. 186, no. 2505, June

2005, p. 10. EBSCOhost,

http://sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr

ue&db=a9h&AN=17602315&site=eds-live. Accessed 21 March 2019.

Rogers, Ryan. How Video Games Impact Players: The Pitfalls and Benefits of a Gaming Society.

Lexington Books, 2018.

Searing, Linda. “The Effect of Video Games on Kids' Behavior and Achievement.” The

Washington Post, WP Company, 6 Apr. 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-

science/the-effect-of-video-games-on-kids-behavior-achievement/2015/04/06/0781f084-
 Sherod 15

d96f-11e4-8103-fa84725dbf9d_story.html?utm_term=.c460a9b81be6. Accessed 21

March 2019.

Sohn, Emily. “What Video Games Can Teach Us.” Science News for Students, 24 June 2014,

www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/what-video-games-can-teach-us. Accessed 21

March 2019.

Video games shrink your brain. No don’t panic. Digital Image. Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmXFiSpDd4M