Everything I have been warning my seven-year-old about playing too many video games is wrong. Dr. Daphne Bavelier, a self-described brain scientist, reveals in her engaging Ted Talk "Your Brain On Video Games" that playing video games might actually be beneficial to the brain. In her Ted Talk from 2012, she debunks common thinking about how staring at video monitors will ruin eyesight and exacerbate attention deficit. Instead, she sites scientific studies which show certain video games improve eyesight and help a “gamer” see more details in the real world. Dr. Bavelier also demonstrates the difference between focusing on a video game and distracting your brain with “media multi-tasking.” While video games sharpen focus; listening to music while texting and driving, for example, is destructive behavior.
The Ted Talk was focused on the physical manifestations of video games on the brain, but I wonder if learning patterns aren’t also a secret gift of gaming? When I bought my first Macintosh computer I remember marveling at the absence of instruction manuals. Today, I watch my son enter a game such as Mine Craft or Terraria where intuitive and deductive skills must be used in order to play. Kids today jump in and figure things out as they go. They also share what they’ve learned and see commonality before differences within their gamer community. They have “tags” and “skins” to represent them. This anonymity creates a commonality that isn’t often experienced in the real world. Races, religion and citizenship are usually not identified in the gamer world. The gamer world is in effect “one world.” If I were a brain scientist or a sociologist, I would be interested in researching what lasting effects this aspect of video game culture could have on our society and in the world at large. Beyond the physical ramifications of frequent gaming, I ponder what the psychological and learning applications of gaming could be?
Dr. Bavelier closes her lecturer with the image of chocolate covered broccoli. It is an analogy for a game that would be beneficial to the brain while also being desirable to play. I firmly believe that video games teach children some of the modern day skills they will need to succeed in college and in the work force. If the scientific and entertainment community in fact do produce “chocolate covered broccoli” I want to play it with my son.
Source: Bavelier, D. (2012, June). Your brain on video games. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games#t-199442
Thats good to hear that video games don't hurt your eye site and have as many negative effects on the brain in contrast to what many people in the past have told me, because I still play video games and really enjoy them. I remember watching a similar video on the positive effects that video games can have on kids and how they learn, in particular when it comes to problem based learning. great job
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