Can Video Games Improve Memory
A new study exploring the link between video games and cognition finds that playing video games as a child can improve a persons working memory years later on specific tasks. Recent studies have shown that playing video games could improve learning and may even protect against dementia in older adults.
Why Are Video Games So Bad For Teenagers
Dr. Gentile suggested that teenagers who are experiencing problems may retreat into gaming, and that the gaming may, in turn, increase their depression and isolation. He says that parents should regulate their childrens use of video games and trust their instincts on what constitutes excessive use,
Do Video Games Cause Depression
Currently, there are not many studies that confirm that video games cause depression directly. Most studies so far, however, show us that excessive gaming can lead to depression.
You need to know that not all video games and gaming will lead to depression. For example, suppose you play video games sporadically for an hour a day or so. Still, you have other activities in your life that fulfill you, and you have an overall stable life . In that case, video games will probably not cause depression.
The problem with gaming, however, is that it can be addictive.
If you suffer from gaming addiction, you get stuck in a vicious cycle of gaming too much and not having time for other activities and friends. As a result, you start to neglect school or work, and your relationships begin to suffer.
The result of this is the deterioration of your quality of life, which leads to depression. And once youre stuck in this cycle, its can be hard to break out of it.
Its important to know that if you are struggling with a gaming problem and experiencing depression, you should focus on resolving both aspects of your life. Implement strategies to reduce your excessive gaming while also addressing the underlying reasons for your depression.
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In A Normal Drug Trial A Group Of Healthy Volunteers Is Given Some Version Of The Drug Or Placebos
However, a placebo is just as real as a real drug.
So although we expect the group receiving the placebo to experience some kind of improvement, we also expect that it will not be clinically significant and that the researchers will expect it to decrease, not increase the baseline depression score.
It is because of this that psychologists believe that certain trials are going to be effective, even though they are not clinically significant, and in fact, only by a small amount.
The reason they are not clinically significant is that the placebo effect works in the same way as any other drug.
That is, it only works in the context of this particular trial. Because of this, a small amount of improvement in a clinical trial is likely the result of a placebo effect.
What is interesting to note is that this placebo effect is mediated by neural mechanisms that are related to rewards and emotional state.
Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “That is silly. I have seen thousands of studies and all of those trials are made up of trials that are very clinically significant.”
However, the fact is that this mechanism is universal in the placebo response.
You may have seen an article where a researcher has reviewed dozens of clinical trials, and in every single trial, the amount of improvement measured by clinicians is positively correlated with the amount of improvement that the scientists can measure in a lab.
Do Video Games Cause Anxiety Then
The one lesson we can take away from all of that is: video games might not cause anxiety directly, but they may worsen it significantly if video games are used as a treatment for anxiety if played excessively.
Some of the main reasons why people suffer from anxiety include:
- Chronic stress
- Alcohol
- Illness
Most commonly, many people suffer from anxiety because of their personality traits. Unfortunately, this is genetically predisposed, so this is an unpleasant life situation that they have to deal with for many people who suffer from anxiety.
For others, anxiety is caused by the buildup of life problems. For example, it may be difficult events, stressful situations, negative experiences in life, trauma, and often a combination of all that might lead to anxiety in the long term.
One of the most unfortunate things about gaming and anxiety is that video games offer an easy and comfortable exit from the difficult situation caused by anxiety. But, unfortunately, this creates other problems, such as a worsened case of anxiety and other mental health issues and problems with physical health.
As such, video games do not cause anxiety directly. Most people who have anxiety and play video games were present much earlier than the gaming problem developed.
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Why Can Video Games Cause Violent Behavior
The most recent research was a large-scale study that synthesized the results of all long-term studies that had monitored children across the globe. Researchers found that some kids may be more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior. However, Dr. Westers reminds parents it is difficult to draw a direct cause and effect between video games and behavior.
One factor that may influence behavior is the tendency of adolescents to model themselves after people or characters with whom they identify. Research has shown that when children and adolescents see individuals they connect with in media including TV, movies or online they are more likely to adopt those influencers’ opinions and acts. Some believe the same may happen with video games.
Effect Of Video Games On Mental Health
When we think of the effect of video games on our mental health, we usually only think of the adverse effects. We believe that video games keep us stuck in life, cause anxiety, depression, and create strain in our relationships. While it is true that video games can contribute to these issues, they are not necessarily the cause, nor are their effects limited to the negative.
The Good
Dr. K talks more about what purpose gaming serves for us, and why we get addicted, in this video:
The Bad
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May Affect Boys And Girls Differently
The study found notable gender differences in screen-time use and effects.
Boys spent more time than girls playing video games, while girls spent more time than boys using social media.
Regular video game use was linked to lower depression scores in boys but not girls, while frequent social media use was linked to higher depression scores in girls but not boys.
Girls who used social media most days of the week at age 11 had depression scores 13 percent higher at age 14 than girls who rarely or never used social media.
The differences in the associations between these sedentary behaviors and depressive symptoms by sex or gender did not surprise me, said Kelley Pettee Gabriel, PhD, FACSM, FAHA, a professor of epidemiology at The University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Indeed, there are other key characteristics that could also be included in studies with a more diverse study sample, including race, ethnicity, and family socioeconomic status factors, she added.
Do Video Games Alleviate Depression
Many gamers turn to playing video games because they feel stressed or depressed. They use games as a form of escapism to forget about their everyday problems and life struggles.
In moderation, this can be helpful, and video games can provide a means of relaxation or temporary escape. But its important to proceed with caution because although games can give temporary relief, they wont solve the issues. And often, create new ones.
At first, youll feel immediate relief and pleasure. Then, youll release tons of dopamine, which will make you crave games more and more. The next time you face a difficult period in your life, youll turn to games again, and before you know it, youll be addicted to video games.
If you turn to video games instead of addressing your real-life problems, you become more and more isolated. As a result, you start to lose friends, your school or job performance starts to suffer, and inevitably, your depression starts to get worse, not better.
This is also what many recent studies confirm:
If you play games to escape from the world, then you need to be cautious. You can get addicted to video games very easily, and once that happens, you will find it hard to come out of this vicious cycle.
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Is There Anything Good About Gaming
Before discussing the harms of gaming, it is only fair to mention the benefits. Aside from being entertaining and a fun pastime, gaming can provide a way for people to interact with each other a virtual community as they work together toward completing common tasks. Our society suffers from an epidemic of loneliness, and gaming can be a vehicle to connect with others, including otherwise difficult-to-connect-with people in your life, such as kids, grandkids, or with autistic children, who can have challenges with traditional modes of communication.
There is mixed research that there are some cognitive benefits to gaming, such as better control of ones attention and improved spatial reasoning, though it isnt entirely clear how much these benefits extend outside of the video game sphere into the real world. Finally, video games have medical applications, such as training people with degenerative diseases to improve their balance, helping adolescents with ADHD improve their thinking skills, or training surgeons on how to do technically complicated operations.
Structural Equation Modeling On The Relationship Between Mobile Game Addiction Depression Social Anxiety And Loneliness
Using Amos 22.0, we conducted a structural equation analysis to examine the association between mobile game addiction, depression, social anxiety, and loneliness.
Model fit was assessed by considering multiple criteria: a Chi-square/df < 5 a root mean square error of approximation of < 0.08 and a comparative fit index and a Tucker-Lewis index of > 0.90 . The model fit was considered acceptable when most abovementioned criteria were satisfied. Our results showed that the model fit to the data well, with 2/df = 3.475, RMSEA = 0.065, 90% CI , CLI = 0.937, TLI = 0.921. Mobile game addiction can explain 10% variance of depression, 6% variance of social anxiety, and 4% variance of loneliness. The standardized beta coefficients are shown in Figure 1. Mobile game addiction was positively related to depression, social anxiety, and loneliness, with = 0.31, p< 0.001, = 0.25, p< 0.001, and = 0.21, p< 0.001, respectively.
Figure 1. The Structural Modeling on the relation between mobile game addiction and depression, social anxiety, and loneliness. ***p< 0.01.
Table 2. Multi-group analysis on the relationship among mobile game addiction and depression, social anxiety, and loneliness.
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Lost Words: Beyond The Page
Dealing with the loss of a loved one can be tough, and even more so for the delicate mind of a child. This game creatively deals with the crucial coping mechanism of a grief-stricken little girl, who yearns to escape in her fantasy world.
This inventive platformer shifts between her imaginative land of Estoria and her literal diary pages. The latter is full of sketches and phrases that document her life events and convey her whirlwind of emotions as she deals with the prospect of losing her bed-ridden grandmother. Beyond the Page is a majestic ride rife with clever puzzles, vibrant locales, and tear-jerking emotional moments.
Emotional Symptoms Of Video Game Addiction
Some of the emotional signs or symptoms of video game addiction include:
- Feelings of restlessness and/or irritability when unable to play
- Preoccupation with thoughts of previous online activity or anticipation of the next online session
- Lying to friends or family members regarding the amount of time spent playing
- Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming
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Video Games And Depression: Is There A Connection
There is a common concern in academia that video games can cause depression. It is a completely valid concern. There is a lot of correlation between violent video games and symptoms of depression. That raises the question: Is there a connection between video games and depression?
Playing too many video games can make depression worse. Those who are addicted to gaming are twice as likely to be depressed as those who do not game. Excessive gaming can lead to dopamine exhaustion, emotional suppression, and lack of motivation, among other issues.
If you or someone you know is suffering from video game addiction, we designed this quiz to help you find a tailored strategy that can help you overcome it:
Read on to learn more about the connection between depression and video games.
The Relationship Between Video Games And Depression: Is It Cause
The answer to the question about the nature of the relationship between video games and depression is unsatisfactory to researchers, mental health professionals, and those with gaming disorder and depression. The nature is unknown, at least for now.
The problem isnt that researchers dont understand the connection. On the contrary, they understand it very well.
Liu and his colleagues , for example, are among those who study the human brain and its functioning in disorders. They found that the same areas of the brain had abnormal functioning in both depression and gaming disorder. The amygdala, prefrontal cortex, gyrus, and the connection between the frontoparietal lobe and the amygdala are disrupted in the same way in addicted gamers and in people with depression.
The problem lies in untangling the connection to see if one causes the other. Currently, its a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Gamers who live with depression may increasingly turn to gaming to escape their symptoms such as negative emotions, thoughts, and moods. Getting lost in gaming may be a sign of a problem in the gamers real-world life, an indication that something is missing.
On the other hand, depression may develop as a result of the gaming lifestyle. Long hours spent without exercise or much movement at all, nutrition and hydration that are often poor, lack of significant interaction with real-world people, and an intense focus on the content of the game can all contribute to the development of depression.
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Video Game Addiction Is Officially A Mental Illness: Should You Worry
Five more minutes!
This is the sound you hear every time you tell your child to get off the video games for the night. But you dont hear it once. You hear it over and over again.
If it seems your childs love of video games has taken over their life and youre genuinely worried about his/her well-being, it could be headed towards what the World Health Organization has officially classified as a mental health disorder: gaming disorder.
Simply enjoying video games and playing them off and on, or easily getting caught up in video games for hours on end but eventually turning off and returning to other activities may not signify gaming disorder or video game addiction, according to the WHO. Its when the technology starts interfering with personal, family, or social health that it can officially become a problem that leads to other negative consequences.
Signs of video game addiction you can look for as a parent include:
- Impaired control over gaming
- Increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities
- Continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences
For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behavior pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months, said the WHO.
Is Video Game Good Or Bad Essay
Its true that some studies have shown certain video games can improve handeye coordination, problem-solving skills, and the minds ability to process information. But too much video game playing may cause problems. Its hard to get enough active play and exercise if youre always inside playing video games.
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The Relationship Between Video Games And Anxiety
The relationship between video games and anxiety is an enmeshed one. Video games tend to draw people who experience certain types of anxiety and keep them hooked. Then, the more time someone spends gaming, the more his or her anxiety tends to increase. Lets explore the relationship between video games and anxiety to loosen the grip they might have on you.
Do video games cause anxiety? This is a common question without an easy yes-or-no answer. Researchers havent found evidence that video games cause anxiety directly instead, studies continue to show that video games and anxiety are correlated. This means that, rather than having a cause-and-effect relationship, the two relate and contribute to each other.
Video games and anxiety are connected by
- Traits and characteristics of someone engaging in gaming
- A specific type of anxiety
Play Together And Show Empathy
“Parental involvement is key across the board when it comes to relationships with children,” Dr. Westers says. “That’s just as true with video games as it is for anything else. When parents are present and involved, it’s easier to talk with children about what they see, and model good behavior. Plus, having a shared interest, like video games, is a great way to bond with your kids.”
When playing video games, Dr. Westers recommends parents talk about what’s happening in the game and separate it from reality.
“Show empathy,” he says. “Talk to your child about how it makes you feel when your character gets hurt or hurts someone else, and compare it to how you would feel in the real world. Remind your child about your values as a family, and say clearly what type of behavior is absolutely off limits in real-life.”
Treat video games as you would any other media, and take the opportunity to talk about certain situations and lessons that can be applied, including how you feel when you win or lose.
“Video games elicit a lot of emotions from excitement to frustration,” Dr. Westers says. “Talk about good sportsmanship and how you cope with those feelings whether that’s not being a sore winner or loser, or knowing your limits and when it’s time to turn off the game and walk away when you’re getting too frustrated.”
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