John
Beck, Senior Research Fellow at University of Southern California's Annenberg
Center for the Digital Future, examined white collar workers and found that
digital gamers were more social, confident, and likely to use creative means to
solve problems than non-gamers. He adds that they were "more competitive ….and did not exhibit the
stereotype of a loner in the basement."
In
a study published in 2014, Dr. Andrew Przybylski, behavioral scientist at the University
of Oxford, surveyed five thousand children and teens in the United Kingdom. His
pool was equally divided between males and females and asked how much time they
spent on console-based games as well as inquiries related to satisfaction with
their lives, attentiveness, empathy, and peer relationships.
He
found that children who play console or computer games for up to an hour a day
were more likely to express satisfaction with their lives.
The
highest levels of camaraderie were found in those children that participated in
computer games up to one hour a day and had fewer emotional or hyperactivity
issues than other subjects in the study.
Video
games are different in that they provide a continuous and rapid feedback
processing system which helps people sustain concentration for long intervals
to achieve the game's goal.
Beck,
J., (2006). The Kids are Alright: How the Gamer Generation is Changing. Harvard
Business Review Press
Przybylski,
A., (July 2014). Electronic Gaming and
Psychosocial Adjustment, Pediatrics
Retrieved
from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/07/29/peds.2013-4021
photo: Wikipedia
photo: Wikipedia
