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Impact Video Gaming On Human Psyche

A video game is any electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface that is able to generate visual feedback on a video device. It is a game that is played by both the young and old people as well as children. However everything that is used by humans either technologically among others has an impact on the human brains. These impacts can be either positive or negative depending on the frequency of the users playing the game (Cherry, 2010).

Negative impact of video gaming on human psyche

Video games just like Cigarettes or any other drugs are addictive and when exposed to for a long especially those that are violent, they may have a cumulative effect of aggression especially those that include violence (Berger, 2002). This is attributed to the fact that many of these video games stir up tension and a feeling of fear hence it could have a long term effect on autonomic nerves. Video games put the individual in a fictitious world where one is engaged in controlling the events. Therefore, while playing these games, studies have it that there is increased heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen consumptions.

Nevertheless, after playing some of these games especially the ones where violence is involved, a greater percentage of children have exhibited violence nature even when relating with fellow students in class or field. Most of those who play these videos have or rather are likely to identify with a violent character in their real life. The main reason to this is that, while playing a violent game, the payer controls the violent character in a visual perspective and therefore one is likely to identify with the violent character (Cohen, 2013).

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Positive impact of video gaming on human psyche

To begin with, every coin has two sides; therefore, as far as video gaming is attributed by factors such as aggression, addiction, and violence, it has some positive impacts on human brain. Some of these positive impacts include;

  1. intrinsic motivation,
  2. concentration and cognitive effort, and
  3. cumulative effort over time to achieve a goal

Most of video games are neither organized nor supervised; hence, most adolescents hence are intrinsically motivated to play these video games. They tend to enjoy or get pleasure when they get (Cohen, 2013) together to play these games. Moreover, video games require substantial concentration and cognitive effort. The importance of this is that it helps an individual in problem solving since these games demands gaming demands that players learn a specific set of problem solving skills. This is because success does not only dependent on the players’ ability to retain those skills, but also their ability to apply them in new and sometimes unfamiliar situations. In addition, playing video games requires cumulative effort since most of these games have a long term goal that requires leveling up various times so as to achieve that final objective (Berger, 2002). Therefore, instead of having to learn every skill and strategy simultaneously at the beginning of the game, each skill tends to build upon the last in sequential order, resulting in a cumulative effort over time to complete the game. The skills required to beat one level are often ineffective for the subsequent levels; instead, players need to repeatedly solve new problems using a combination of skills they’ve learned throughout the game hence keeping the mind to think very fast while playing (Cohen, 2013).

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Therefore as much as some of the impacts of these games on human brains are negative, they are also helpful as well. When we understand the positive ways of how these games are involved in the development of citizens hence enabling us to make use of them to create a better world. Scientifically video games have proved to have positive effect on the mind and it also helps one to deal with stress or emotional issue (Cogburn, 2008).

Reference

Berger, A. A. (2002). Video Games: A Popular Culture Phenomenon. Transaction Publishers.

Cherry, K. ( 2010). The Everything Psychology Book: Explore the human psyche and understand why we do the things we do. Adams Media.

Cogburn, J. (2008). Philosophy Through Video Games. Routledge.

Cohen, E. L. ( 2013). Communication Yearbook 37. Routledge.

Wolf, M. J. (2001). The Medium of the Video Game. University of Texas Press.

 


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