Posts

Gaming Source and Effects

Image
  Evidence also demonstrates that playing video games increases the size and competence of parts of the brain responsible for visuospatial skills – a person’s ability to identify visual and spatial relationships among objects. In long-term gamers and individuals who had volunteered to follow a video game training plan, the right hippocampus was enlarged. Researchers have discovered that video gaming can be addictive – a phenomenon known as “Internet gaming disorder.” In gaming addicts, there are functional and structural alterations in the neural reward system – a group of structures associated with feeling pleasure, learning, and motivation. Exposing video game addicts to game-related cues that cause cravings, and monitoring their brain responses, highlighted these changes – changes that are also seen in other addictive disorders. “We focused on how the brain reacts to video game exposure, but these effects do not always translate to real-life changes,” notes Palaus. The research into

How video games affect the brain

  Video gaming is clearly a popular form of entertainment, with video gamers collectively spending 3 billion hours per week in front of their screens. Due to their widespread use, scientists have researched how video games affect the brain and behavior. Are these effects positive or negative? We examine the evidence. At a glance, more than  150 million  people in the United States play video games regularly, or for at least 3 hours per week. The average American gamer is a 35-year-old adult, with 72 percent of gamers aged 18 or older. For video game use by children, most parents – 71 percent – indicate that video games have a positive influence on their child’s life. Video game sales continue to increase year on year. In 2016, the video game industry sold more than  24.5 billion games  – up from 23.2 billion in 2015, and 21.4 billion in 2014. The top three best-selling video games of 2016 were  Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare ,  Battlefield 1 , and  Grand Theft Auto V . These games fall