Last week in church, our lesson was on prioritizing time. Actually, the official subject was avoiding being worldly, without excluding yourself from the world. The two subjects that got the most attention were money and time, and time got the most, because money is always discussed, so it is nothing new. Anyhow, at one point the teacher proudly told how he had prioritized his time better, by playing less video games and doing more physical activities like running. I kept my mouth shut, because the subject of the lesson was not whether video games or physical activity is more valuable, but now it is time for me to rant on this subject.
I regularly hear people say things that devalue video games and exalt physical activity. The common "wisdom" of modern society tells us the video games are time wasters that have no value beyond entertainment. Combined with this, the fact that the occasional person gets addicted to video games, common wisdom says that video games are entirely bad. In addition, common wisdom tells us that violent video games make kids violent. Given these things, it must be obvious that violent video games are especially bad. There is one problem with the common wisdom though: So far, all scientific evidence contradicts these claims. It actually turns out that some of the minor benefits of video games were fairly well know over 20 years ago. In fact, in a public speech on Aug. 8, 1983, Ronald Regan said, "I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets." It turns out that the long mocked benefit of increased coordination from playing video games is actually a very valuable asset in the military, among other professions (for instance, surgeons also need very good coordination). Now, I call this only a minor benefit, because real science has found a large number of other benefits that go far beyond the limited applications of highly developed coordination.
First, I recommend watching all of the TED videos by Jane McGonigal (here is one). In one of her videos, she talks about a study where people in rest homes were asked about their regrets and what they wished they had done. The first notable thing is that none of the regrets included playing games too much (video or otherwise). The things they wished they had done included things like spending time with family, working less, and other activities that games can help facilitate. Another one of her videos discusses how adding game-like elements to real life can help improve motivation and even health. She strongly recommends playing games (video games or other games) cooperatively with other people at least 20 hours a week. In the video linked to above, she says that typically 10,000 hours of doing some activity is considered sufficient to become an expert in that activity. She then points out that there are millions of people in the U.S. that have spent enough time playing various video games to be experts. She asks, what are they experts in? The answer is critical thinking and problem solving. McGonigal says that if we can harness the problem solving power of all of these experts, we might be able to fix most or all of the world's problems.
Second, brain scientist Daphne Bavelier discusses actual scientific research in this TED video. Science manages to debunk a large number of myths about playing video games. One notable one is that playing a lot of video games damages eyesight. The research Bavelier is involved with has shown that action games actually improve eyesight, as well as perception. Gamers are more likely to notice small details than others. She also discusses the claim that playing games leads to ADD or ADHD. Again, this is false. Gamers tend to be better at fast decision making where high focus is required. They also tend to be better at keeping track of many things at the same time. These are both things that people with ADD or ADHD have difficulty with. Quantitative measures from Bavelier's research actually show that gamers are about twice as good at focusing compared to other people. She also discusses several other lab tests they did, all of which found that gamers have greater brain development than people who do not play games. After playing the games for several hours or several days, the above mentioned benefits were seen even in people who do not normally play games (and lasted up to 5 months).
Third, many studies have found that violent video games do not make children violent. In fact, some studies have found that violent video games can work as an outlet for aggression, making aggressive children less aggressive towards other people. The only case where video games and violence had a positive link were in people already predisposed to violence. Otherwise stated, people who might be affected by video games to become more violent are people who already have psychological problems tending towards violent behavior. These cases can be diagnosed before playing violent video games, and there are almost always warning signs long before any disastrous behavior occurs. In other words, violent video games do not make anyone violent. There is a very small amount of evidence that they may trigger violent behavior in people with diagnosable mental problems, earlier than would otherwise occur, but they will not cause violent behavior that would not have eventually happened anyway without video games.
There is far more evidence than this that games are good and healthy, and the only evidence that exists that they are bad only shows that they are bad when played obsessively. Real research shows that common wisdom claiming video games are bad is not just wrong, but it claims the opposite of the truth. Video games are actually very healthy for the brain.
I am not done ranting yet. There are some interesting implications of the above that I want to discuss. The first thing about the Sunday discussion that bothered me was the assumption that physical activity is superior to playing video games. Now, I am not saying that physical fitness is not important. It certainly is, but if a person is already reasonably fit, and that person has to choose between games and exercise, which is the better choice? The answer to this depends. In a society where people have to do a lot of physical labor to survive, further increasing physical prowess is extremely valuable, and physical activity would be the clear winner. We do not live in that society though. We live in a society where physical labor is done primarily by the lower class and is compensated fairly poorly. In our society, the high paying jobs are engineering jobs, which require highly developed problem solving skills. The ability to perceive small details is a huge asset in higher paying jobs. Even many higher business jobs require good problem solving skills. Further, getting those physical labor jobs is pretty difficult when the economy has trouble, because almost anyone can learn to do that work. During the recent recession, when construction jobs and nearly every other physical labor employment dropped considerably, jobs in problem solving (most especially engineering jobs including electrical engineering and computer science) were constantly available. For these problem solving industries it was business as usual: There was high demand for employees with a low supply. In short, so long as a person has enough physical activity to avoid health problems, the video games are more valuable in the long run. Going to the gym or hiking with friends is great, but it seems like a poor decision to sacrifice good brain exercise for physical activity that is little more than entertainment.
So, would I be proud of myself for spending less time playing video games and spending more doing physical activity? Certainly not. I currently spend around an hour a day walking to and from classes, every weekday. About 3 of those days, I run part of the way, to get my heart rate up and to maintain good lung function. I consider this physical activity an important part of my routine, because it is necessary to maintain good health. I am not an athlete, but this is sufficient exercise to maintain quite good health. My weekly total of time spent playing video games is probably several more hours than my weekly total of real exercise. As a Computer Science major, my problem solving skills are more important than physical activity, so long as I remain healthy. Since my exercise routine is sufficient for health, it would be rather irresponsible of me to spend less time playing video games so that I can spend more on physical activity. Spending less time on video games could easily result in a reduction of problem solving skills, which could make my work less valuable to an employer. I have a responsibility to provide for my family, and an important part of that is maintaining a high value to my employer, so my employment will be continued. The consequences of playing video games less, no matter how noble the alternative seems, could easily result in letting my family down.
I have said this before (somewhere; I forget exactly where): Playing video games is like working out for the brain. In physical workout, great strength can be gained, but it has no value if it is never used. Similarly, through video games, great mental strength can be gained, but likewise it has no value if it is never used. From this we should get two things: First, sitting in a basement playing video games constantly is truly a waste of time if the benefits are not used. Second, playing video games is like working out! Yes, that is exactly what I said. If you are a parent and you are worried about how much time your children spend playing video games, ask yourself how you would react if your children were spending that time working out at the gym instead. If your reaction to the gym is less negative, something is wrong. Are you hoping your child will become a garbage collector or a cheap construction worker (there are some highly skilled construction jobs that require less physical work and more mental work), or do you want your child to be well suited to be an engineer, a surgeon, or a lawyer (or a CEO or...)? Similarly, if you have a spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend who plays a lot of video games, consider the gym thing again. It is possible to spend too much time at the gym, and if someone in your life is spending that much time playing video games, then it is perfectly reasonable to be concerned. Otherwise is it completely hypocritical.
Now I am sure someone out there is wondering, "If video games are so beneficial, how did ancient humans get by without them?" That is not an entirely unreasonable question, and it conveniently has a very simple answer: They lived them! Ok, so that sounds both melodramatic and slightly absurd, but it is also true. The most beneficial video games are those that require remembering where things are (mapping), noticing small details (perception), and making important decisions very quickly (decision making and problem solving). Before we had all of this technology and knowledge, people had to hunt for food, they had to avoid or fight neighboring tribes, and they had to avoid predators. Getting lost (mapping) was very often deadly. If a person did not notice the stalking predator or warrior from a nearby tribe (perception) it would also result in a quick death. If a person reacted poorly to a situation with a scout from a nearby tribe (attacked a friendly or tried to talk to a hostile; this is decision making), it could result in quick death or unnecessary war. All of these things were literally developed as a consequence of the difficult conditions of real life. People that live in a society without these difficult conditions do not get these opportunities to develop problem solving skills that are far more important than we give credit for. Really, the only other reasonable (and cheap) place to get this training is video games that simulate similar conditions to those that ancient humans lived their entire lives in. Many modern video games manage this very effectively. The benefit with video games is that they do not require the grueling physical exertion (which can lead to poor choices as the body uses resources needed by the brain) and do not have the constant threat of death. In other words, in games we can make mistakes and learn from consequences, without having to experience them first hand.
The moral of this is that video games are good for us, if we take advantage of the benefits they give us. Even those who are traditionally against entertainment and for "going back to the land" should see the value in video games, as they train the human brain for problem solving in the way it was designed to learn. Video games are more or less the most natural form of learning, aside from living under the constant threat of death. I suspect part of the reason so many people are drawn to video games is that they use the brain in the most effective way possible. Learning to play a new video game is easy, but learning a new school subject of equal complexity is often quite hard. Games provide constant motivation to play. In school, the only real motivation is a light at the end of a very long tunnel. Games reward us for learning as much as we can. School rewards us for doing as little as possible that will get us through it. We can see this clearly by the fact that "piston" sometimes returns a Minecraft reference as the first result in a Google search (most of the time it is second to Wikipedia). Many other searches return World of Warcraft results before real world knowledge. Well designed video games can take advantage of this to teach useful real world applications of knowledge, but even games designed purely for entertainment can teach problem solving skills that cannot effectively be learned anywhere else.
Like Jane McGonigal, I recommend playing 20 hours of games a week (see her videos for the exact context). Further, I recommend that at least 5 hours of this be video games where keeping track of location, noticing small details, and making quick decisions are integral parts of the game play (these do not all have to come from the same game, but I think it would be more efficient use of time if they did). The most obvious genre for this is first person shooters (FPS, which I do not happen to enjoy much), but most real-time strategy games (RTS), role-playing games (RPG), and many games from other genres can satisfy these requirements (even Tetris is good for decision making). Currently I have been playing a lot of Minecraft, which has small amounts of quick decision making, a huge amount of mapping, some small details, and an extremely strong focus on general problem solving (and if you do not like killing the occasional zombie or spider, you can set it for "Peaceful" mode, at the expense of quick decision making).
It is not hard to see major benefits from playing video games, unless you think that somehow a few more hours of physical activity is more valuable than useful work skills that are essential to comfortable survival in the modern world. If you really want something to be proud of, quit wasting so much time on physical activity and spend a few more hours a week playing video games (or better, turn of the TV and spend the extra free time on video games; they are at least as entertaining and far more beneficial).
Lord Rybec
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