Video Games: How Do They Affect our Brains?
- GroovyHayley
- Apr 17, 2022
- 4 min read
Video games have been an extremely popular source of entertainment for many years now. Online gamers collectively spend 3 billion hours per week playing in front of their screens. The average young gamer spends around 10,000 hours playing video games by the time they turn 21 years old. As online gaming becomes increasingly popular amongst an extensive variety of people, there is an important question that must be answered. How do video games affect our brains?
64% of American adults (214.4 million) play video games. 61% of these gamers have been found to play through their smartphones, with 52% playing through gaming consoles, and 49% through PCs. The average age of a gamer in the United States currently sits between 35 and 44, with men accounting for 59% of players. Out of those 214.4 million gamers, 46 million have disabilities.
There are many types of video game types and genres, such as action, adventure, simulation, strategy, sports, role-playing, traditional, and so many more. Video games have evolved thanks to technological advancements, and gamers can now enjoy playing with 3D graphics, artificial reality, facial recognition and virtual reality.
Certain types of games affect our brains differently. According to a 2015 study conducted at the University of California, researchers found that 3D video games increased memory capacity in participants. Another study from 2020 discovered that children who play video games such as 'Super Mario' displayed greater improvements in their working memory when compared to kids who did not play video games. This research suggests that video games can have very positive long lasting cognition benefits.
Increased skills in sensorimotor tasks and hand-eye coordination have been proven in people who game regularly, especially those who enjoy action video games, like 'Call of Duty' and 'Assassin's Creed'. These findings from the University of Toronto study are great news for gamers and could also help people that suffer from low sensorimotor skills or hand-eye coordination.
A Michigan State University study that involved approximately 500 different 12 year old kids found that the children's writing and drawing creativity levels expanded the more they played video games. Corresponding results were established in a different study conducted in 2020, with 3 in 5 (63%) of the young participants admitting to creatively writing about the video games they play.
Many parents believe that violent video games translate into dangerous and violent behavior in their children, but research has confirmed the two do not correlate. According to a study created by Agne Suziedelyte, it has been discovered that aggressive video games have the ability to aggravate players, but they do not increase their risk of inciting violence towards others.
Despite not being associated with real world violent behavior, there has been an alarming discovery related to action video games. A study published in MolecularPsychiatry measured the brain effects of video games over the course of 4 years by first gathering 33 people and scanning their brain's using MRIs, as well as asking them how often they play video games per week.
The results showed that the gaming participants played action video games at an average of 19 hours per week, and had a significantly smaller amount of grey matter in their hippocampus brain region when compared to MRI results of non-gaming participants. The researchers then asked a separate group of 43 non-gamers to spend 10 weeks playing 90 hours of either action video games, or Super Mario games.
After the 10 weeks had passed, research found that entertaining first-person shooter games such as Call of Duty and Metal of Honor had decreased the size of the participant's hippocampus brain region. Interestingly, the group of participants who spent the 10 weeks playing Super Mario games had all developed an increase of grey matter inside their hippocampus. So why did the results turn out this way?
"In the majority of action video games, there's an onscreen GPS overlaid on the screen," West says. "There's also wayfinding markers overlaid over the environment, and we know from past studies that when people are encouraged to navigate using these cues, really, they're not using their hippocampal memory system to navigate" (Gregory West, Study Author).
Mankind discovered the hippocampus over 4 centuries ago, causing it to become one of the most researched parts of the brain. It is a very important brain region that plays a major role in memory and learning, as well as spatial navigation and stress regulation. The smaller the hippocampus becomes, the more a person becomes at risk of developing diseases and brain illnesses including depression, dementia, epilepsy, PTSD, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease.
Even though the study results showed a decreased hippocampus size in players who partake in action style games, the same research also displayed an increase in their caudate nucleus, which is responsible for high-level functioning. These functions include planning movement, reward, motivation, emotion, romantic exchanges, memory, and learning.
"It could be the case that these action video games are encouraging people to favor this reward system over their hippocampal memory system. And then it's become the use-it-or-lose-it type scenario" (Gregory West, Study Author).
Although the study results may be slightly concerning for those who love to play first-person shooter video games regularly, research has also proved the hippocampus size can be increased through various methods, including other genres of video games, exercise, and a healthy diet. A study completed at the University of British Columbia showed that regular aerobic exercise is the best way to increase your hippocampus size. Aerobic exercises include walking, running, swimming, rowing, jumping rope, boxing, cycling, and dancing.
The researchers found that when compared with aerobic exercise, the hippocampus did not grow when participants completed resistance training, balance, and muscle toning exercises. Another great way to stimulate growth in the hippocampus is to challenge your brain. Completing crossword puzzles, taking a new route home, and playing problem-solving video games such as Super Mario, Forza, Rocket League, Final Fantasy, and StarCraft are all proven ways to enlarge the hippocampus brain region.
Actively working to maintain a healthy hippocampus is crucial to gamers as well as non-gamers. 1 new case of dementia is diagnosed every 4 seconds around the globe. Researchers estimate that more than 115 million people worldwide will have dementia by the year 2050. There is nothing wrong with occasional gaming, but an overly excessive amount may be a cause for concern, especially when other beneficial daily activities are excluded.
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