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Juan Miguel Martinez

ENGL 1302; 223

Mr. Powers

April 10th 2024

Position Paper Final Draft

Video games are one of, if not the most popular forms of entertainment in the online

world right now. In an article by Sagari Gongala, she states that “a study found out that 97% of

teens and children indulge in playing video games and mobile gaming for at least an hour a day

in the US” (Gongala). So many teenagers, and adults alike are engaging in the almost addictive

activity, that is playing video games. Seeing many children, teenagers, and adults alike play

video games when they have free time, some people from the outsider’s perspective, may believe

that most, if not all video games, are harmful to the human mind and can have negative side

effects if played too often, or for a long period of time. These thoughts of video games having

negative effects on the minds of children and teenagers, may be an even stronger belief when it

comes to violent video games and link the violence in a video game, to real world violence

happening around the world, being caused by young people. Although several articles do

mention potential negative side effects of playing video games, there are also many articles and

studies that show that not every single video game has negative side effects on the brain of a

teenager or child. With these many articles hovering around in the fictional world we call the

internet, many people cannot help but argue on which one of these statements is true. With much

factual evidence that is open to the public, it is not hard to believe, that video games, are not a
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cause of violence, but on the contrary, they not only have close to zero negative effects, they can

have positive effects on the player.

To begin, many people play video games to escape the real world that they are in.

Escaping reality is no easy task, yet video games help these people escape their reality in a quick,

yet entertaining way. Sometimes, this escapism from real life, is not to get an inspiration to

commit acts of violence in the real world, rather to simply get a little enjoyment. One may

believe that escaping to violent video games may increase the levels of aggression on people, but

in a study conducted by Lukas Leopold Lengersdorff, et al, they set out to find whether playing

violent video games decrease levels of empathy in men. The research got eighty-nine men to

play a modified version of the violent video game Grand Theft Auto V. One set of males had to

damage as many NPC’s (non-playable characters) as possible within a set time limit, while the

other set of males had to take as many pictures of NPC’s as possible. At the end of the

experiment, the researchers concluded that, both of the groups of males “did not show decreased

empathy for another person’s pain or decreased responses to violent imagery” (Lengersdorff, et

al). One other article that mentions how there is little to no increase in aggression with violent

video games, is one authored by Christopher Ferguson. In this article, Ferguson goes to find out

whether there are good or bad side effects of playing violent video games. Ferguson goes on how

it is “not hard to ‘link’ video game playing with violent acts if one wishes to do so” meaning that

the public will most likely link any violent crimes to violent video games. Although, Ferguson

goes on to say that, after he conducted his study, that “violent video game exposure is associated

with increased visuospatial cognition” (314) and how the results do not “support a relationship

between violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior” (314). Clearly, there is no great
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link to video games and violence on adults, but what about the effects that video games may

have on the youth?

With the popularity of video games rapidly increasing, of course children and teenagers,

young and mature, will be attracted to video games and their entertaining mechanics to keep

themselves occupied. Although not very common in young children, young and mature teenagers

are more likely to be attracted to violent video games. With many teens being attracted to these

violent video games, one cannot help but wonder if violent video games may have a negative

effect on the unmatured minds of teenagers. In an article authored by Naïma Gradi, et al, they set

out to find just that. Naïma, et al, describe the process they are going to take whether or not

action-like video games may have an effect on the teenage mind. Once conducting the

experiment, Naïma, et al, go on to the results where they say, “While video games are often

considered as appealing and rewarding to the population, their potential to augment engagement

and adherence rates of mental health interventions is yet under-documented” (Naïma Gradi et

al.). However, later on in the article, they also say how “it is possible that some positive effects

of the games on mental health and cognitive outcomes be even more protracted” (Naïma Gradi et

al.). This article proves that although there are some potential negative effects on teenagers, there

could be some posiutive side effects to playing video games as well. In a similar article, authored

by Marzo RR, et al, they conduct another study to talk about effects of video games on the

behavior of teenagers. Over all, Marzo, et al, have to say that, “the results show that there is

relationship between the video games and the aggressive behavior even the prosocial behavior as

well” (182), and how “video games tend to lead prosocial behaviors tendencies and that

prosocial tendencies tend to lead to selection of prosocial games” (182). Even so not only do

video games not have negative side effects, they also can have potentially positive side effects.
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Video games don’t only have negative side effects, they can also have some positive side

effects that are beneficial to the brain. In an article set out to find some positive side effects that

video games may have on children and teenagers authored by Filiz Aydemir, he goes to mention

how “Children are inevitably affected by technological developments. Along with these

developments, children’s playing equipment, playing habits, and game perceptions has also

changed” (AYDEMİR). So, society and the toys children play with has in fact changed a lot over

the past couple of years. Later on in the article, ADYEMIR goes to mention some of the positive

side effects video games may have on children, these effects include concentration over a long

period of time, improvement in decision-making and problem-solving skills, short-term memory,

“distractibility, comprehension, perception, reasoning, and visual skills can be improved through

these games” (AYDEMİR). Alongside these effects, the authors continue to describe other

positive things that come from these effects. They describe how their hand-eye coordination gets

better, and how the games also contribute to the attention span and focus on the child or teenager

(AYDEMİR). Not only can video games increase attention span, and hand-eye coordination, but

also “improves mood and emotion regulation and contributes to reduction emotional distress and

anxiety” (AYDEMİR). The authors also go to describe how video games can be used for

education, since they attract the children and increase the child’s motivation to learn

(AYDEMİR).

Over all, there are a lot of positive and negative side effects to playing video games. One

may argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but with much factual evidence, conducted

by trusted researchers, one could counter the argument that video games only cause negative

effects, and say that there are a lot of other articles researching, exploring, and detailing the

positive side effects that video games as well. This topic is still new, since video games first
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started surfacing and becoming popular around the mid 1980’s and there is still a lot of research

being conducted by other researchers and professionals, looking to find out which of the effects,

whether being positive or negative, are most likely to have a major effect on children and

teenagers alike. But with the evidence and research that has been conducted to this day, there is

without a doubt, a positive effect on video games within children, teenagers, and adults alike.
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Work Cited

AYDEMİR, Filiz. “Digital Games and Their Effects on Children.” Adıyaman Üniversitesi Sosyal

Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, vol. 0, no. 41, Aug. 2022, pp. 40–69,

https://doi.org/10.14520/adyusbd.1116868.

Ferguson, Christopher, “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A Meta-analytic Review of Positive

and Negative Effects of Violent Video Games”, Springer Science+Business Media, 78,

no. 10, 4 October 2007, pages 309-316.

Gongala, Sagari. “Positive and Negative Effects of Video Games on Teenagers.” MomJunction,

13 July 2018, www.momjunction.com/articles/effects-of-video-games-on-

teenagers_00352668/.

Lukas Lengersdorff, et al. “Neuroimaging and Behavioral Evidence That Violent Video Games

Exert No Negative Effect on Human Empathy for Pain and Emotional Reactivity to

Violence.” ELife, vol. 12, eLife Sciences Publications Ltd, Nov. 2023,

https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.84951.

Marzo RR, et all. Effects of playing violent video games on teenagers’ behavior- A cross

sectional study from Malaysia. Indian J Comm Health. 2019;31(2):179-184

Naïma Gradi, et al. “Evaluating the Effect of Action-like Video Game Play and of Casual Video

Game Play on Anxiety in Adolescents with Elevated Anxiety: Protocol for a Multi-

Center, Parallel Group, Assessor-Blind, Randomized Controlled Trial.” BMC Psychiatry,

vol. 24, no. 1, BioMed Central, Jan. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05515-7.