(14 min read)
Yes, and yes. This is a question I’m asked a great deal: are there any positives in gaming that transfer to the real world? Or should we be very concerned about our children becoming obsessed by gaming?
In discussions about computer gaming, whether it be at the school gates or in the media, it’s rare to find positive findings. Professor Daphne Bavelier, world leader into the effect of video games on the brain, argues that there are many benefits to gaming. In a previous article we discussed improvements to focus, peripheral view, reaction times and transferable skills such as those required for key-hole surgery.
But there are also significant socio-emotional benefits.
Gaming: a safe place to practice emotions?
A different way of looking at games is to view them as a safe place to practice modulating negative emotions and to deal with them. When your children are absorbed in a game, they’re becoming more resilient; they’re learning acceptance, how failure feels and works, and how to problem-solve. Even better, research shows that these skills are linked to lower levels of depression too.
But are you worried your child is turning into a socially isolated loner who lives on the sofa? Well, contrary to the stereotype, most gamers (over 70%, in fact) play with other people – either in direct competition with them or as part of a team.
Most parents’ concern is that these social relationships just aren’t the same as real-life ones – not as fulfilling and, well, real. How can your child develop the ability to read facial cues and emotions? How do they learn to make eye contact and to listen to someone? This is why the researchers stress that games should be played in moderation (and what sensible parents know anyway).
There are still important life lessons to be learned from games, though. Douglas Gentile is a professor of psychology at Iowa State University and one of the world’s leading experts in the effects of video gaming on our behaviour. He makes the point that the influence of media is very strong on children, particularly in adolescence when they’re developing and understanding social norms. It is around this time that children become more independent and shift from parent to peers. The rules about what sorts of behaviour is appropriate is very flexible at this time; playing prosocial video games with other can help them to pick up cues on how to adapt behaviour to fit a network.
My charming friend Rufus, a very worldly eight-year-old, told me that when it comes to gaming, “the worst bits are online people – they don’t really play fair. But not my friends.” So, maybe being exposed to the sorts of people who don’t play by the rules is a good life lesson. Rufus has learned not to play with cheaters; it’s no fun. He is confident in his ability to spot who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad’.
Another friend told how video gaming saved his relationship with his son. After he and his wife separated and he lived far away from his son, gaming offered a precious channel to stay in touch: it allowed them to play together, compare experiences, tease each other and bask in the glory of winning as a team. It hit the spot where an awkward face-to-face Skype call just couldn’t. I can’t imagine it would be as easy, or as fun, to spend six hours a week on the phone to your dad when you’re an adolescent boy. But being British or American paratroopers fighting the cause together in Call of Duty? Yes.
Teenage view:
Louise has two teenage children, Katie and Ned. She had a very frank and illuminating conversation about gaming with her son. Ned’s sophisticated explanations of the different types of gaming was enlightening: “for a PlayStation, you have the ‘one more turn’ games, such as ‘Civilisation’ and ‘Victoria 2’. These eat up your time and you have to be careful because you think you’ve spent ten minutes and suddenly a whole hour’s gone by. Then there are the ‘first person shooter games’ like ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’. They’re highly competitive, and multi-player. If you lose you get very angry. But it’s good stress relief as well. I reckon you learn how to deal with competitive feelings, because if you feel angry or frustrated you don’t play as well in the next game. I’m much calmer with it now that I’m 17. It requires a lot of focus and engagement, and keeps you switched on and stimulated.
When you’re in the 10-12-year age bracket, unless you’re very careful you spend a lot of money on games with flashy colours and loot boxes. It’s like gambling, and you don’t have any restraint. It’s just like a fruit machine in a pub. The chance of your getting anything out is incredibly small but you think ‘I’ve already put so much in, that I can’t give up now.’ ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Overwatch’ are the biggest younger kids’ game, aimed at 12 and under. It’s like going to a casino and playing on fruit machines. But you get addicted to unlocking loot boxes. ‘Minecraft’ is one of the best. It’s so un-predatory – like an advanced ‘Lego’ – and there are so many things you can do with it.
When I’m playing video games with my friends, 40% of our talk is insulting each other, banter – you know. We’re not just talking about the game.
When I first got my PlayStation at 13, I bought ‘Destiny’ and I was playing an obscene amount of time with one of my friends. One time my friend and I spent a whole day on it. A few times I slithered down at midnight (I wasn’t allowed it in my room) and played for a few hours until I got exhausted. It’s the competitive element to it; trying to get better at it and beat my friend. You do have to put in a certain amount of time to be good at it.
In terms of spending getting out of control, only once I got into trouble with Mum. I spent money to buy the Destiny expansion pack. I decided to go for forgiveness rather than ask for permission and used Mum’s card. It was £30 a pop, times three. Mum didn’t realise until she got her statement a month later.
But it’s hard for a kid to buy by mistake on PlayStation because you’ve got to come out of the game, go to the store, and confirm credit card details. It’s the phone games that are really dangerous because you confirm purchase with a thumbprint, so unless your parent changes the set-up to be password controlled then any kid can potentially get into trouble. One press and it’s done. The thing is with phone games is that most of them are free, so they haven’t had as much money spent in developing them as good games, unlike the console games which have to be good because they’ll cost you £50. And at least it’s skill and strategy with the console games like ‘Grand Theft Auto’, ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Fifa’, so they’re more satisfying. Phone games are, in my opinion, set up as gambling sites, using appealing colours, and gems to collect – they do something addictive to the brain. It eats time and yet you get nothing out of it in the end. And the trouble with phones is they’re with you constantly, even when you’re outside.”
What if my child becomes obsessed?
Most children, like Ned, confess to binging on games from time to time. We now know that it’s dopamine spikes in our children’s midbrains that causes them to seek out more of the pleasure of playing games, and the anticipation of a reward (a win) which generates the greatest amount of dopamine. Although different from a full-blown obsession, binging is not healthy. Back to Professor Bavelier, who has spent years studying brains on video games. She says categorically that despite the many benefits of action video gaming, “I’m not going to tell you that playing video games days in and days out is actually good for your health. It’s not, and binging is never good”.
For other children (and adults) gaming can progress to an addiction, and with addiction comes destructive neurological and social burdens. Addicted gamers’ brains recruit similar brain areas as alcoholics or other substance addicts: dopamine and brain reward centres are activated during game play. Over time, addiction causes an alteration in the brains of dependent gamers – specifically the orbitofrontal area (above the eyes) and anterior cingulate cortices (in the very centre of the brain) these changes can affect the ability to make accurate predictions and decisions. Studies of other types of addiction show that these distortions cause a range of cognitive deficits.
However, it is also the case that most addicted gamers are also intense users of other types of media, all of which informs their brains’ plastic response, causing a significant divergence from ‘normal’ brains interacting with the normal world. Indeed, in a large meta-analytic review of the subject of gaming and addiction, it was concluded that video game addiction arises out of other mental health problems, rather than causing themi.
Navigating the complex terrain of gaming is challenging. Clearly each child responds in a different way, and it’s up to us parents to find the best path through. Until we know more about brains, and have longitudinal data for how gaming affects them, we won’t have a clear map. However, it is worth bearing in mind the benefits of gaming, as well as the potential harm.
How do you deal with requests to keep on playing? Do you limit your children’s play? What are your positive stories about gaming? hello@drtorrancejenkins.co.uk.
i Ferguson, C.J., Coulson, M. and Barnett, J., 2011. A meta-analysis of pathological gaming prevalence and comorbidity with mental health, academic and social problems. Journal of psychiatric research, 45(12), pp.1573-1578.