Are Video Games Bad for Kids?

I read an article recently titled Robi Ludwig: Are video games a mental health hazard for our kids?. In the article, the author Robi Ludwig talks about video games and gives some facts about it. He explains about a research from Dr. Daphne Bavelier, who did a study on popular first-person shooter games such as Call of Duty. Bavelier had found that the brains of those playing such video games showed activity in brain regions that showed many visual-spatial benefits such as attention, task switching, brain plasticity, learning, short-term memory, perception, and perceptual decision-making skills, all of which can help prepare children for jobs in the future. The study also said that gamers were better at making split-second decisions, and less likely to be violent. There had been a previous study that said playing violent video games could lead to children being more violent, however a psychologist Christopher J. Ferguson thinks that the study was done improperly, with the results being incorrectly analyzed. He says the study completely ignored the important social factors of the mental health status and the family environment of the gamers. Ferguson found that poor mental health, such as depression or antisocial personality disorder, were much more likely to cause aggressive behavior. He also found that a poor family environment was also more likely to cause aggressive behavior. Another study found that problems linked to video games were dependent on the child’s psychological investments into the game. Gamers that were heavily invested into games were more likely to be at risk as opposed to those that played games recreationally, and kids who used games as a method of escape were more likely to have negative emotions or lower self-esteem. These both show that it’s a lot more complicated than we think, and not just a simple case of video games leads to negative emotions. Another problem is video games can cause trouble if the game is addictive, and prevents the player from developing good habits. Ludwig summarizes that essentially, there is no solid answer stated. Video games can be very helpful as much as they can be harmful, and it drastically depends on the surrounding situation.

I personally disagree with the idea that video games are more likely to cause violence. I think the main issue with these studies are that they don’t separate what is caused by gaming and what leads to bad habits while gaming. For example, the study that showed that playing more violent games meant the child was more likely to be violent didn’t consider the psychological background of the people playing the games. A lot of the listed symptoms that they had listed seemed like they would have stemmed from already existing issues, not video games. This is said by Christopher J. Ferguson, as he believes the studies were improperly analyzed. I think a lot of the time, they would find kids that already had other issues going on, which would lead to them playing certain games, not the other way around. For example, a kid that is having issues in their household could be more likely to develop bad habits with gaming, while a person playing the same games the same way but in a better household would not develop those bad habits. This is anecdotal evidence, however growing up, I often would play what most consider more violent video games, and I have never really had mental or physiologic issues in my life, and have generally been living a pretty good life. This is also true for many of my friends and my brother, who played those games with me. None of us have any mental issues, and we all generally had good lives at home. While this is very anecdotal and personal evidence, it’s hard for me to believe that video games could directly cause violence, as I played games with many friends, and none of us have really an ounce of violent tendencies or problems. The only people I know that had bad gaming habits already had troubles in their lives outside of gaming, and usually used gaming as an escape from their problems. This of course isn’t the best thing to do, however sometimes people feel like they can’t do anything else. I think the best way to fix that would be the fix the root problem, not blame video games. The author says that video game addictions can be harmful, and that is true, however they also are similar to any other kind of addiction. Drug addictions, gambling addictions, or any other addiction can be just as harmful, and a video game addiction isn’t itself special. If a child didn’t make friends and developed bad studying habits because they were always playing video games, it would be bad, however the same thing could be said if they had spent the same amount of time doing nothing but reading, or dancing, or any other activity. The reality is that too much of anything is bad, and video games aren’t an exception. However, they also aren’t a special case, and I think people are trying too much to blame video games for problems that arise from somewhere else. So while I think it is possible for video games to be unhealthy, I think that people should try looking for other things that could be the root problem, such as problems at home, before they go to blaming violent video games.