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Video Games Mental and Physical Health Literature Review

Trevor Dilley

ENG 225

Professor Snyder

October 29,2023
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Introduction

Mental and physical health is important even when you're dealing with things like video

games. They have both their advantages and disadvantages. Different things are caused as an

effect of playing a lot of video games, some cause brain boosting abilities that improve different

factors in everyday life (Bavelier, 2016). But excessive gaming can also lead to addiction that

messes with everyday life. That addiction leads to more mental problems like depression and

anxiety paired with suicidal ideation. Along with that it not only happens in adults but in children

too they can exhibit symptoms of the same things. The point of this paper is to highlight the

different effects of videogames in mental and physical health. To show that while there are bad

factors there are also good ones that contradict the bad. The paper is divided into 3 different parts

in which the health of children that play games is first followed by the boosting effects of games

completed with disordered gaming in which bad addiction is discussed.

Mental and Physical Health in Gaming

Gaming in Children

A study was conducted in which parents would record and report how long their child

played video games for on average every week then the Parent, Teacher, and Child would report

the mental health status of the kids. The Parent and Teacher were given a questionnaire to fill out

that comprised 5 subsections. While the report for the children was different, they were given a

cartoon-like computer assessment tool known as the “Dominic Interactive” which is used on

young children to measure how the kid is feeling.

The results suggest that video games are not associated with mental health problems. It

instead suggests that it is a great outlet for children socially along with being good for their

cognitive functions. Due to the nature of the survey there was not a way to determine the long
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term effects of high video game usage. Longitudinal studies are required to monitor the mental

health and social functioning in kids that play games to make sure positive effects are maintained

throughout life.(Kovess,2016)

Yet another test was run but this time it was on students that were in 6th to 12th grade.

Although this test was run around 30 years ago it still gives good insight on the topic. The goal

of this study was to test the effects videogames have on aggression and self esteem. They used a

sample of 153 kids and provided them with a survey that consisted of many different questions

that got as simple as talking about favorite games. Along with that they got teachers to rate their

students on their self esteem and aggression.

Around 47% of the participants believed that games might bring on some type of anger or

aggression. The findings speak about how the boys play more games then the girls and are more

aggressive than them too. Then it goes on about the subject needing more research to find a true

answer.

Another study was done to test the effects of short term videogames on performance in

children that have developmental delays. Children at a hospital in taiwan in which children aged

3 to 12 with developmental delays of any type attended different stages of videogame playing for

8 weeks

The participants were sorted randomly into 2 groups. Group A received normal

rehabilitation and the eight 30 min sessions of interactive video games for 4 weeks with normal

rehabilitation alone for 4 weeks.While group B had the opposite, getting the normal

rehabilitation first and the gaming sessions second. In the end there were little if any differences

in the functional performance and family impact. But using it in conjunction with standard
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rehabilitation improves their physical health and is something they are able to enjoy while going

through all that they are.

The Boosting Power of Games

Studies were done on the impact of videogames on the brain. In one of these studies an

undergraduate assistant in a lab coded a test in checking how well someone can search for a

particular shape in a crowded scene. The creator Green began testing himself but for some reason

he kept getting perfect scores. He reported to his supervisor that there was a bug that he could

not find, but she told him to just test it on other people. He gathered some people and they all got

perfect scores. At this point they couldn't figure out why this was so his supervisor decided to

take the test. She ended up getting nowhere near their scores and instead scored average. It was

determined after some consideration that the reason they did so well was because of one

difference: Green and all the participants (his friends) had all spent more than 10 hours a week

playing the new game Team Fortress Classic.

From there they started studies on playing action video games. During their research they

found that playing games boosts many cognitive abilities. Action games specifically help with

the ability to focus on visual details which can help look for fine print. They can also improve

sencity to visual contrast which can help when driving through fog. Along with those 2 there

were multiple other things that were improved due to videogames.

Disordered Gaming

Disorderd gaming is considered as excessive gaming to the point where daily life

including jobs, school, relationships, and mental health are poorly impacted. Gaming to a point

where you are agitated when you aren't able to play and need to get back to it. One can get
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dragged into it while using it as an outlet to help where it eventually turns into something you

consider very very important. This can be considered as a secondary symptom of anxiety and

depression.

A study led to the conclusion saying we should try to reduce gaming intensely among

people that have anxious tendencies to hopefully reduce the levels of depression. Another thing

would be figuring out how to maximize the benefits of gaming while not getting to an unhealthy

point and making things worse.

Disordered gaming is also a thing in children and it can be a big problem. It can lead to

suicidal ideation. The study was conducted on kids from 12-18 in which they were required to

fill out 3 forms and child depression scales while under the supervision of an adult.

It was found that there was a relationship found between suicidal ideation and internet

gaming disorder or IGD. Along with there being a strong relationship between suicidal ideation

and MDD (Major Depressive Disorder). They found that only 8 generas of games were

connected to suicidal ideation.

Conclusion

While gaming has some negative possibilities if used in an unhealthy way it is

overwhelmingly positive. It boosts picture recognition along with training reflexes. Along with it

not being a problem that kids play them even if it's more than 5 hours a week due to it boosting

their brain in different areas. In the future they should work on getting more long lasting

experiments to track the long term effects of some of these things. They could also dig deeper

into image recognition and see to what degree games help. So overall games tend to be good,

helping in many areas. This research is a good step towards people seeing video games in a new

light.
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Resources

Atkins, E., Nixon, K., Fling, S., Smith, L., Rodriguez, T., & Thornton, D. (1992). Videogames,

Aggression, and Self-Esteem: A Survey. Social Behavior & Personality: An International

Journal, 20(1), 39–38.

Bavelier, D., & Green, C. S. (2016). The Brain-Boosting Power of Video Games. Scientific

American, 315(1), 26–31.

https://doi-org.mccproxy.lib.hawaii.edu/10.1038/scientificamerican0716-26

Hsieh, R.-L., Lee, W.-C., & Lin, J.-H. (2016). The Impact of Short-Term Video Games on

Performance among Children with Developmental Delays: A Randomized Controlled

Trial. PLoS ONE, 11(3), 1–16.

https://doi-org.mccproxy.lib.hawaii.edu/10.1371/journal.pone.0149714

Kovess-Masfety, V., Keyes, K., Hamilton, A., Hanson, G., Bitfoi, A., Golitz, D., Koç, C.,

Kuijpers, R., Lesinskiene, S., Mihova, Z., Otten, R., Fermanian, C., Pez, O., & Koç, C.

(2016). Is time spent playing video games associated with mental health, cognitive and

social skills in young children? Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 51(3),

349–357. https://doi-org.mccproxy.lib.hawaii.edu/10.1007/s00127-016-1179-6

Stavropoulos, V., Vassallo, J., Burleigh, T. L., Gomez, R., & Colder Carras, M. (2022). The role

of internet gaming in the association between anxiety and depression: A preliminary

cross‐sectional study. Asia-Pacific Psychiatry, 14(2), 1–9.

https://doi-org.mccproxy.lib.hawaii.edu/10.1111/appy.12474
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Ucur, O., & Donmez, Y. E. (2023). The relationship between suicidal ideation and internet

gaming disorder and the role of game genres among adolescents. Annals of Medical of

Research, 30(9), 1008–1012.

https://doi-org.mccproxy.lib.hawaii.edu/10.5455/annalsmedres.2023.07.152