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Dr Shock MD PhD

This is from an excellent overview about video games and the brain: Video Games Affect the Brain—for Better and Worse. The most important conclusion to be drawn after reading the post on Cerebrum of the Dana Foundation is:

With the exception of educational games, most video games’ effects on brain and behavior are unintentional on the part of both the designers and the players. Nonetheless, research suggests that the effects are real. Video games are neither good nor bad. Rather, they are a powerful form of entertainment that does what good entertainment is supposed to do—it influences us.

Since I am biased first the good news about playing video games:

• playing action video games can improve visual attention to the periphery of a computer screen
• action games can improve adults’ abilities to make fine discriminations among different shades of gray (called contrast sensitivity), which is important for activities such as driving at night
• games requiring teamwork help people develop collaboration skills
• video games that include “pro-social” content—situations in which characters help each other in nonviolent ways—increase such conduct …

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