Video
games are everywhere around us. Kids nowadays start playing games on
their iPhones as young as two years old, and addiction to gaming can
become a serious problem from a very young age. Some of the reasons for
that are way simpler than we think, as video games affect our brains in
shocking ways we never really considered. Here’s the list of ten weird
ways video games work their way into your brain, and stay there.
Sibling Relationships
Turns
out that brothers and sisters who play the most violent games together
fight way less with each other. The research showed that siblings learn
how to defend each other while playing games such as Call Of Duty and
later do that in real life.
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The Bystander Effect
The
bystander effect deals with the fact that if there are more people in a
given area, it is much less likely that one individual will help the
person in need. They will most likely think someone else will and
proceed to stand back. The bystander effect is greatly boosted by video
games and can be replicated in real life very easily.
Moral Sensitivity
The
newest editions of video games give you the choice of picking if you’re
a good guy or a bad guy. Of course, such a choice has consequences in
real life, too. The players who decide to be terrorists rate much higher
on guilt and shame and the ones who opted to be the good guys became
much more sensitive to the evil in the world.
Desensitization To Death
One
of the most recent studies when it comes to video gaming answered the
question about the correlation between violent video games and suicide
capability which stands for the the ability to overcome fear of death
and a tolerance to pain to commit suicide. The results weren’t that
surprising. People who play violent video games are much more prone to
not fear death.
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Aggression
Aggression has been wildly
linked to violent video games, especially in the media coverage.
However, it depends what kind of violent games you play. Those players
who enjoy violence in a morally ambiguous context are much more likely
to act violent in real life, while those who prefer to play a hero are
known to be on the other side of the aggression scale.
Reaction Time
Playing
video games can actually help you with your motor skills in quite a
significant way. Those who are used to play a lot of video games such as
Call of Duty where it is required to act quickly and think on your feet
actually translate those skills into real life. Therefore, those who
play video games have a shorter reaction time and have better ability to
sense motion as well as track people.
The Avatar Effect
Apparently,
if you’re the one to have personalized avatars in games, you’re more
likely to be aggressive while playing video games. The character doesn’t
have to have any similarities with the person who made it, it will
still increase the violence when it comes to how the person acts in the
game, and therefore real life.
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A Special Emotional Reaction
There’s
a special type of emotions directly linked to video games, that doesn’t
show up in any other aspect of our lives. Those emotions are linked to
three levels of the video games – narrative, context, and mechanics.
When put together, those three levels build a powerful narrative,
something of a second life for the player. Video games unleash a totally
new experience for people. They are the characters, they see the story
unravel before them, and they interact with the other players.
Self-Esteem
Video
gamers who grow more attached to their characters have lower
self-esteem, a recent study has shown. Actually, the more you play, the
less your self-esteem grows.
Regulation Of Emotions
Video
games can be of major help when dealing with anxiety. Some doctors even
use them to get the levels of anxiety reduced in patients as well as
gain more impulse control via video game therapy.
Video games are
everywhere around us. Kids nowadays start playing games on their iPhones
as young as two years old, and addiction to gaming can become a serious
problem from a very young age. Some of the reasons for that are way
simpler than we think, as video games affect our brains in shocking ways
we never really considered. Here’s the list of ten weird ways video
games work their way into your brain, and stay there.
