daniel chigunweThis article will discuss the increasing popularity of people choosing gaming as a hobby. It will discuss why people like to play games, how users play games as a method of escapism and what are the other benefits of users playing video games?
Video games are a ubiquitous part of almost all people’s lives, with 97% playing for at least one hour per day in the world. The nature of these video games has changed drastically in the last decade, becoming increasingly complex, diverse, realistic, and social in nature. In this article, we summarise the positive effects of playing video games such as poker, focusing on four main domains: cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social. By integrating insights from developmental, positive, and social psychology, as well as media psychology, we propose some candidate mechanisms by which playing video games may foster real-world psychosocial benefits.
Cognitive Benefits of Gaming
Contrary to conventional beliefs that playing video games is intellectually lazy and sedating, it turns out that playing these games promotes a wide range of cognitive skills. This is particularly true for shooter video games (often called “action” games by researchers), many of which are violent in nature. The most convincing evidence comes from the numerous training studies that recruit naive gamers (those who have hardly or never played shooter video games) and randomly assign them to play either a shooter video game or another type of video game for the same period of time. Compared to control participants, those in the shooter video game condition show faster and more accurate attention allocation, higher spatial resolution in visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities.
A recently published meta-analysis concluded that the spatial skills improvements derived from playing commercially available shooter video games are comparable to the effects of formal courses aimed at enhancing these same skills. Further, this recent meta-analysis showed that spatial skills can be trained with video games in a relatively brief period, that these training benefits last over an extended period of time, and crucially, that these skills transfer to other spatial tasks outside the video game context.
Motivational Benefits of Gaming
Game designers are wizards of engagement. They have mastered the art of pulling people into virtual environments, having them work towards meaningful goals, persevere in the face of multiple failures, and celebrate the rare moments of triumph after successfully completing challenging tasks. In this section, we aim to identify several characteristics of video games that seem to promote an effective motivational style both in and outside gaming contexts. Specifically, decades of research in developmental and educational psychology suggest that motivational styles characterised by persistence and continuous effortful engagement are key contributors to success and achievement.
Gamers develop beliefs about their intelligence and abilities, beliefs that underlie specific motivational styles and directly affect achievement. Players who are praised for their traits rather than their efforts develop an entity theory of intelligence, which maintains that intelligence is an innate trait, something that is fixed and cannot be improved. In contrast, gamers who are praised for their effort develop an incremental theory of intelligence; they believe intelligence is malleable, something that can be cultivated through effort and time. Video games are an ideal training ground for acquiring an incremental theory of intelligence because they provide players with concrete, immediate feedback regarding specific efforts players have made.
Immediate and concrete feedback in video games (e.g., through points, coins, dead ends in puzzles) serves to reward continual effort and keep players within the “zone of proximal development.” This motivational “sweet spot” balances optimal levels of challenge and frustration with sufficient experiences of success and accomplishment.
Emotional Benefits of Gaming
Gaming may be among the most efficient and effective means by which players generate positive feelings. Several studies have shown a causal relation between playing preferred video games and improved mood or increases in positive emotion. For example, playing puzzle video games with minimal interfaces, short-term commitments, and a high degree of accessibility (e.g., Angry Birds, Bejewled II) can improve players’ moods, promote relaxation, and ward off anxiety.
Social Benefits of Gaming
Perhaps the biggest difference in the characteristics of video games today, compared to their predecessors of 10 to 20 years ago, is their pervasive social nature. Contrary to stereotypes, the average gamer is not a socially isolated, inept nerd who spends most of his (or her) time alone loafing on the couch. Over 70% of gamers play their games with a friend, either cooperatively or competitively. Given these immersive social contexts, gamers are rapidly learning social skills and pro-social behaviour that might generalise to their peer and family relations outside the gaming environment.
Overally, the argument on whether games are good or bad depends on the type of games and their effects on players. Generally, games have been developed to help people relax and be entertained, but players should guard against passive consumption of gaming content.
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