If you believe the cliché, people who like video games are out-of-shape nerds who spend all their free time in front of screens killing demons while neglecting their physical and mental health.
While this depiction is a mischaracterization of gamers, anything done to excess, including playing video games, can be unhealthy. According to the Mayo Clinic, gaming addiction is a real condition. It can lead to consequences similar to other addictions, including the need for rehab.
But some evidence suggests that gaming can provide mental health benefits, which include:
- Offering intellectual stimulation.
- Fostering a sense of accomplishment.
- Improving decision-making skills.
- Helping people cope with failure.
Many discussions of video games and mental health include questions about whether violent video games lead to violent behavior such as school shootings. Patrick Markey, director of The Interpersonal Research Group, suggests that no such connection exists.
In fact, Markey says that playing violent shooter games can actually correspond to a decrease in violent behavior. He says that while more than 70% of high school students play video games with violent content, just 20% of people who engaged in school shootings have played the same types of games.
“School shooters have less interest in violent video games,” says Markey, noting that school shooters don’t typically participate in the same activities their peers enjoy, such as playing video games.
A University of Oxford study discussed that playing video games can offer mental health benefits, which include:
- Stimulating the brain and mental processes.
- Relieving stress.
- Combating loneliness.
- Assisting with challenges.
- Providing opportunities for self expression.
Stimulating Brain and Mental Processes
Many video games feature problem-solving opportunities that stimulate various areas of the brain. Studies cited by the National Institutes for Health suggest that even video games that don’t require extensive thought and planning can have a beneficial effect on both the brain’s structure and its function after about 16 hours of gameplay. Studies that use cognitive tests to measure the long-term effect of gameplay are needed to confirm these findings.
Still, the Oxford study suggests that gaming can have long-term benefits for the brain and mental acuity, especially regarding a person’s abilities to plan ahead, retain memories, and think of things in new ways. Strategy games could enhance gamers’ mental acuity and thus should improve their nongaming lives, schoolwork, and careers.
Relieving Stress
There are many ways to relieve stress after a hard day or a stressful incident with a boss, teacher, or loved one. Watching television or reading are common ways to relieve stress. Gaming can also be a healthy outlet to help people relax and gain perspective.
Studies suggest that video games can also stimulate the neurotransmitter dopamine, which can create a sense of euphoria. While we must often work or study for long hours to achieve some measure of gratification, gaming provides more instant pleasure, whether it’s slaying a monster or solving a puzzle.
Researchers note that even violent video games can actually lead to stress relief during and after gameplay. Gamers could be using violent games to purge negative emotions from their systems.
Combating Loneliness
One effect of social media is that people may have a circle of new friends. It’s possible they’ve never met some of them in real life.
Multiplayer online gaming can be a shared experience with people from around the world. People who find it challenging to socialize in other ways might form relationships during shared adventures in worlds based on fantasy or science fiction themes.
Experts note that multiplayer gaming can help people combat loneliness related to the lockdowns and isolation sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Social play, as some call the multiplayer experience, allows people to develop and practice social skills that would otherwise atrophy without the physical company of their peers. Multiplayer gaming allows people to share adversity and triumph, experiences that could serve them in good stead in the real world after the end of the pandemic.
Assisting with Challenges
According to scholars, meeting and overcoming challenges is an integral part of video games. Challenge is a key motivation for playing any kind of game. The act of meeting and overcoming a challenge reinforces a player’s self-confidence.
Challenges presented by video games, especially sophisticated strategy-based games, are not restricted to obvious tasks that advance gameplay. They include creative problem and puzzle solving, addressing moral and ethical dilemmas, thinking outside the box, using imagination, and improvising. Overcoming game-related obstacles can help gamers tackle problems in the real world.
Fostering Self Expression
Finally, video games, especially those that are set in their own universes, provide an outlet for self-expression. In the world of the game, the player is no longer a student or an office worker. He or she can be a barbarian warrior, an officer on a spacecraft, or an elven wizard.
Fantasy writer L. G. Estrella suggests that gamers choose to build their characters based on their personalities and preferences. The building of a character, his or her skill set, appearance, and even their back story are acts of self-expression. Gaming can therefore be considered a form of art that’s as creative as literature, painting, or drama.
Beyond the immediate pleasure that people receive from playing them, video games can benefit mental health in many ways.
Sources
- mayoclinichealthsystem.org – Are Video Games, Screens Another Addiction?
- barnardos.org.uk – Why Gaming is Better for Your Mental Health Than You Might Think
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov – Does Video Gaming Have Impacts on the Brain: Evidence from a Systematic Review
- frontiersin.org – Video Game Addiction and Emotional States: Possible Confusion Between Pleasure and Happiness?
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov – Video Games and Stress: How Stress Appraisals and Game Content Affect Cardiovascular and Emotion Outcomes
- bbc.com – How Online Gaming Has Become a Social Lifeline
