Essay outline

Professor’s Name

Course

Date

The Effects of Video Games on Society

Since the discovery of video games in the second half of the 20th century, video gaming has become a widespread means of entertainment in the United States. Throughout this period, video gaming has received condemnation, especially from parents, educators, and scholars. They argue that it causes violent behavior, mental illness, and crime in society. However, these assertions have not been backed by concrete evidence. Currently, millions of video gamers are spending billions of hours glued to their screens, which is an occurrence that has prompted scientists and researchers to examine the effects of video games on the human brain and society. Evidence suggests a causal link between video games and the mind, and its ability to change various regions of the brain. These findings are changing perspectives about video games from a source of entertainment to a medium for finding alternatives to issues facing people and society. In this regard, today, video games are being developed to benefit society, especially people with physical and mental disabilities, enhance economic experimentation and simulation, boost art, and shape and influence social changes in society.

Mental and Physical Disabilities

One of the benefits of video games to society is assisting to enrich the lives of people with mental and physical disabilities. Owing to the popularity of video games today, professionals in medicine, therapy, rehabilitation, and learning disabilities are interested in finding ways that video games may assist people in need. The emergence of numerous studies on this possibility is leading to a belief that video games are useful tools for boosting the lives of individuals with mental and physical disadvantages. A reason why videogames are believed to be a solution is because of the direct causal link between playing video games and an increase in brain capacity (Baker 16). It attests that particular regions of the brain can be trained using video games. As a result, video games have the potential to be used during therapy for people suffering from mental illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia that cause regions of the brain to shrink or alter in unexpected ways.

Apart from enriching the lives of people suffering from mental and physical disabilities, video games are also reducing the occurrence of some physical and mental illnesses by preventing the deterioration in cognitive capabilities and boosting rehabilitation. Video games are cognitively complicated and demand mental power and mental capacity to play them. Doing things that require mental energy is synonymous with mental exercise. Thus, video games can boost and sustain mental sharpness. Emerging studies have also offered evidence-based findings of the role of video games in assisting stroke victims to recover, promoting reading skills in dyslexic children, treating depression, and enhancing rehabilitation (Baker 18). As a result, video games are beneficial to society as they are going beyond entertainment to offer medical and health benefits to the physically and mentally ill.

Economics

In the realm of economics, Baker claims video games are improving economic research and simulation, thus boosting the ability to address economic problems in society. Video games are offering economists the capability to experiment and simulate on an enormous scale never witnessed before (Baker 19). For instance, Eve Online is a video game that allows users to operate using the game’s currency to build an economy. Through this video game, economists are testing various economic concepts that rarely happen in real-life situations. For example, non-fractional reserve banking is a widespread libertarian substitute for the prevailing banking system that is evident in Eve Online and economists are trying to determine its feasibility by harmonizing real-life research and virtual simulations (Baker 20). Besides, with abundant data and information, it is possible to carry out economic-wide research in video games and extrapolate on real-world situations to offer economical solutions to issues facing society.

According to Yanis Varoufakis, an economist from the University of Athens, the future of economics is turning into research and modeling. Video games are providing an opportunity to do so. Yanis Varoufakis was hired by Valve, a renowned video game company, to assist in creating a shared virtual economy between their two video games after massive successes in analyzing the Euro crisis and Greek debt problems. During this period, he got a first-hand experience on how much an economist could learn from a complex virtual economy. Since the future of economic theory is blurring as breakthroughs were realized more than five decades ago, he envisioned the virtual world provided by video games as a platform to generate sound and reliable economic theories to explain and address challenges in society (Baker 20).

Art

There is a growing consensus that video games can be regarded as art owing to their popularity in contemporary society. This is a sophisticated statement as it requires a definition of art and video games, but it has to be addressed because the latter is the result of artistic work. Artists dedicate thousands of hours designing, drawing and painting, scoring modeling, voice acting, sound designing, rendering, and scriptwriting amongst others that are, on their right, regarded as art (Baker 21). It is illogical that individually, these actions are considered art, but when aggregated, they are disregarded as non-art. As a result, video games are a form of art, as the process leading to the final product is laden with artistic work that also makes the final product a work of art.

Aggression and Violence

Nevertheless, the popularity of video games in contemporary society increases the risk of raising an aggressive and violent society. Violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty are the most played video games to date. These genres of video games are associated with aggressive and violent behavior. Yao et al. did a study to investigate the interactive effects of individual factors such as sensation-seeking and situational factors such as violent video game exposure (VVGE) on aggressive behavior. They also examined the mediating role of personal difference traits such as anger, hostility, and moral disengagement. The findings demonstrated that VVGE is positively correlated with disinhibition, moral withdrawal, and aggressive features, including anger, hostility, and verbal and physical aggression. The results are also supported by Makashvili et al. who concluded that a violent video game influences the emotional domain of the gamer, thus the likelihood of increasing physical aggression, especially amongst beginners.

Lack of Evidence

Despite the presence of studies suggesting a causal link between aggression and violence and violent video games, the majority of these studies focus on the short-term. Today, violent video games are attracting public attention for promoting aggression and violent behavior, reducing prosocial behavior, increasing impulsivity, and interfering with mood and cognition. However, these effects are the result of priming and do not determine the long-term effects of video games on aggression and violence. In the first study to examine the long-run impact of playing violent video games, Kuhn et al. employed a series of tests, including behavioral measures of aggressiveness, questionnaires, interpersonal and empathy competencies, sexist attitudes, impulsivity-oriented constructs, and executive control functions. The results showed no noteworthy changes when the group playing a violent video game was compared to the ones playing a non-violent video game and a passive control group. As a result, emerging studies offer the insight needed to debate about the negative impacts of playing violent video games.

The opponents of violent video games, and video games, in general, also do not realize that recent discoveries of the causal link between video games and increases in brain volume have made video games appropriate for all generations. In the past, the association between video games and aggressive and violent behavior oftentimes focused on children. However, the demography of video gamers has changed, as more than 90% of players are now between the age of 18 and 35 years old (Anderton). As a result, a change in demography reduces the aggression argument as this age-group is less likely to be influenced negatively by video games.

Conclusion

In summary, video games are commonplace in the 21st century, with new models and brands emerging to entertain and educate society on various issues. Since millions of people are currently playing video games, in-depth research into the effects of video games on society reveal varied results. Still, the benefits of video games today outweigh the losses to society. The association of video-games with aggression and violence and anti-socialization are not based on substantial evidence. However, emerging evidence suggests that video games are set to benefit society in the long-run by improving the lives of people with mental and physical disadvantages, offering economical solutions to social problems, and driving social change.

Works Cited

Anderton, Kevin. The Impact Of Gaming: A Benefit To Society [Infographic] Forbes. 2018,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinanderton/2018/06/25/the-impact-of-gaming-a-benefit-to-society-infographic/#205a6370269d Accessed on April 2, 2020

Baker, Christopher J. “Video Games: Their Effect on Society and How We Must Modernize Our

Pedagogy for Students of the Digital Age.” 2014. Virginia Commonwealth University, Thesis.

Kühn, Simone, et al. “Does Playing Violent Video Games Cause Aggression? A longitudinal

Intervention Study.” Molecular Psychiatry, vol. 24, no.8, 2019, p. 1220-1234.

Yao, Mengyun, et al. “Violent Video Games Exposure and Aggression: The Role of Moral