At heart, I have always been a gamer. I don’t play during the weekdays, when my repository is backlogged with homework, studying, and other tasks that occupy my attention. Friday through Sunday has traditionally been the time when I am free to do as I like, and after years of sticking to the same schedule, I have clocked in thousands of hours in a wide variety of video games. In retrospect, some would contend that those are thousands of wasted hours in my life, or worse, thousands of hours of regression and stagnation; I have heard such staid opinions countless times from parents and other adults in their circles. And over time, it has come to be a great annoyance for me that something I have invested so much time and effort in—and that has summarily rewarded me for doing so—is never looked at for its benefits, always its shortcomings. This is not to say that I believe video games cannot be a poor use of time: in some circumstances, notably times of testing, they can be an ill-placed distraction. My problem with the familiar viewpoint taken by most authority figures in the lives of adolescents is that the cognitive, social, and motivational benefits video games provide are completely ignored.
The older generation tends to heavily stereotype and stigmatize video games and their consumers. Some argue that various genres of video games promote violence, laziness, and an overall worsening of the psychological state of youth. There exists an equally exorbitant number of studies, many of them questionable in nature, that show connections between gaming and whatever problem you may wish to find, be it one that reflects popular opinion or not. The only truly valid argument I have heard against video games is that their very existence in the purview of a student’s attention can easily disrupt that student’s focus while in school or studying—and looking at the introduction of Chromebooks to IHS, for example, it’s a difficult argument to refute. Yet that’s the extent to which video games can inflict actual harm on adolescents, and it’s no more of a problem than phones, social media, or, in the absence of those, even books would cause. When looking at the problem of video-game addiction, games should be treated as any other paradigm would, not singled out in their potential for harm. It is mostly the ubiquity of video games in modern-day America that has fomented such backlash from adults, who see the new type of play as useless and needlessly addictive when neither is necessarily true.
With 97 percent of adolescents in the U.S. playing some sort of video game for at least one hour a day, a figure that encompasses 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls, video games are easily the primary outlet for the “play” form of entertainment available to teenagers. Viewed in isolation, the benefits of play are numerous. It replicates situations that exist in different social contexts, encourages the development of reactions to an assortment of “pretend” stimuli, and generally focuses cognitive awareness at a higher rate; to sum it up, play is the underlying starting point behind all future social relations. I argue that video games can be viewed as the apotheosis of all past forms of play. When looking at different levels of play, we can start from the basic physical forms such as Tag and move up to traditional games whose enduring variants include the celebrated Go and Chess (the latter of which is often used as an educational tool and is required in all schools in Armenia); video games as a whole display a range and depth that can equal or exceed any of these in the context of cognitive development. Although this may have been debatable a decade ago, with the advent of enormously successful multiplayer games in recent years alongside the longtime standbys, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft, the social integration video games cause has become undeniable. The conception of your average gamer as a friendless, nerdy kid shut up in a basement gives way to a new world where the vast majority of teens play, communicate, and celebrate their interests in online communities that include their real-life friend group. Meeting people through forums or circles dedicated to a favorite game is a tangible and common event, and entirely new friend groups can be built through game-related interaction alone.
Contrary to the stereotype that video games damage one’s intelligence and athleticism, the improvement of problem solving and strategic decisions in tandem with spatial awareness are some of the most obvious cognitive benefits of gaming. This is not a blanket generalization that applies to all video games and its effects should not be exaggerated; the aforementioned aspects however, have been shown to be consequences of the first-person shooter (FPS) and real-time strategy (RTS) genres of gaming. A gamer who regularly plays FPSs such as Halo or Team Fortress 2 will adjust to the pace of gameplay and dramatically enhance their cognitive ability to evaluate situations and react to them in real time.
RTSs are as intense as FPSs, but have in place of speed and reflex a sterner focus on background knowledge, resource management, and the long game. It goes without saying that such games are the most obvious candidates to be named for their cognitive benefits, although that very fact has led to an overshadowing of other games with just-as-valid benefits, notably the aforementioned FPSs. The so-called South Korean national sport, Starcraft II, is the single most infamous RTS for its professional community and fanbase, as well as its steep skill requirements and strategic elements. Over 100,000 viewers tuned in to the Starcraft championship series last year. That a professional scene not only exists, but is also prolific (although Starcraft is not even the most prolific among e-sports, as professional gaming is commonly known; that honor goes to League of Legends) speaks to the influence of well-designed games and their reward. Many retired e-sports professionals go on to have healthy careers in other fields, benefiting indirectly from their experience with video games all the while (mentioning this does not mean I recommend or commend becoming a professional e-sports player). Examples of other RTS-like games popular with today’s youth include League of Legends and Dota 2, the two most acclaimed titles that ascribe to a slightly different genre known as the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). Hearthstone, another game that is enjoying popularity in both IHS and the world at large, is a digital collectible card game (CCG) that pits players against each other in matches that pair the strategic decision trees of chess with the luck of the draw.
The spatial skills provided by such games—both RTSs and FPSs—have real educational merit. The pace of cognitive improvement evident in people who play them is something that can only be drawn from a video game because of their highly involved control mechanisms, and more important, their standalone appeal. No one looks at someone playing Call of Duty and thinks, “I should buy that game and consistently play it to improve my spatial awareness and thus my success in STEM subjects and future career.” People game, if not for their personal entertainment, for the social reasons explained above, and that such a beneficial rider tags alongside the most popular genres of modern video games suggests a lot about the talents of Engineering students—go to Code Red Robotics and ask the club how many members play a MOBA or FPS regularly. Video games are never mentioned in the context of study habits or educationally relevant interests, but the merits they exhibit mean that maybe gaming is something that’s okay to flaunt on a resume.
Emotional investment and motivation are two other huge factors: the case of younger children is where we can truly look to video games as a source of inspiration and motivation. For pre-adolescent children, the social aspect in the building of relationships comes again as an omnipresent rider, but in the case of solo games, the motivation built up towards completing a game is just as fundamental. Persevering through a tough segment of a game like Metroid Prime or trying to truly catch ’em all in Pokemon sets up important bases in the conscious that remain steady through shifts to different contexts and media, such as high school. The uniqueness of content of video games, as well as all the aforementioned factors, set them apart from sports and the like when it comes to teaching children dedication and how it feels to invest time and effort. The payoff for completing a solo game can be a powerful formative experience after working for weeks, or even months, to get the hang of it.
My purpose in writing this article is not to praise every aspect of gaming or to defame those who would speak ill of video games. I recognize fully that in many cases, video games can and will have a negative influence on adolescents in the standard addiction-withdrawal cycle that has plagued so many outlets of entertainment past and present. My goal is only to have people recognize and understand the role of video games in society and the myriad benefits they provide to children young and maturing; that their aid in emotional development, social relations, intellectual and spatial frames, and motivation not go unsung. Instead of always playing the villain, video games should have a chance to be publically praised and to shine. For all the good that they do, games are not even thought of by gamers themselves as something fundamental to their own development and character. It’s a shame that a paradigm of such critical importance is eternally undermined. And even if none of that concerns you, we could all live a little more, couldn’t we?