Outline for a Persuasive Speech about Benefits of Playing Video Games
A new paper in American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association, looks at the positive effects of video game play.
I’ve already written about the 5 reasons I’m buying my kids a Wii U this holiday season. In a way, this post offers 4 more reasons, emphasizing some of the positive impact that comes from gaming. As you’ll read below, I have some reservations about the paper, but I also think there’s a lot of good information in it.
The research paper, by Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C. M. E. Engels, entitled “The Benefits of Playing Video Games,” attempts to balance out the kinds of research that has been undertaken around gaming. The authors write:
Decades of valuable research on the effects of violent video games on children’s and adolescents’ aggressive behavior already exists, and this is indeed an important body of work to consider. However, we argue that in order to understand the impact of video games on children’s and adolescents’ development, a more balanced perspective is needed, one that considers not only the possible negative effects but also the benefits of playing these games.
They summarize research on the positive impact of gaming in the following areas: cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social. Here, I summarize their summary.
I feel compelled to mention that I do have a number of questions about the validity of the general concept of “psychological health.” The criteria with which we assess one’s psychological well-being seem, to me, inescapably political in nature. That is, I believe we should seriously question what agenda underlies any attempt at identifying an “ideal” image of health. Healthy for what? Often, we are defining what it means to be healthy enough to participate in an inherently unhealthy system. Consider that myriad authors have pointed out that many of our most ‘successful’ citizens, our most famous CEOs in particular, display sociopathic tendencies.
I’ve already written about the 5 reasons I’m buying my kids a Wii U this holiday season. In a way, this post offers 4 more reasons, emphasizing some of the positive impact that comes from gaming. As you’ll read below, I have some reservations about the paper, but I also think there’s a lot of good information in it.
The research paper, by Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C. M. E. Engels, entitled “The Benefits of Playing Video Games,” attempts to balance out the kinds of research that has been undertaken around gaming. The authors write:
Decades of valuable research on the effects of violent video games on children’s and adolescents’ aggressive behavior already exists, and this is indeed an important body of work to consider. However, we argue that in order to understand the impact of video games on children’s and adolescents’ development, a more balanced perspective is needed, one that considers not only the possible negative effects but also the benefits of playing these games.
They summarize research on the positive impact of gaming in the following areas: cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social. Here, I summarize their summary.
I feel compelled to mention that I do have a number of questions about the validity of the general concept of “psychological health.” The criteria with which we assess one’s psychological well-being seem, to me, inescapably political in nature. That is, I believe we should seriously question what agenda underlies any attempt at identifying an “ideal” image of health. Healthy for what? Often, we are defining what it means to be healthy enough to participate in an inherently unhealthy system. Consider that myriad authors have pointed out that many of our most ‘successful’ citizens, our most famous CEOs in particular, display sociopathic tendencies.