The Positive and Negative Aspects of Video Games in Society

In our modern society, we rely on varieties of entertainment in order to satisfy our need for enjoyment. One type of entertainment, which is currently becoming more prominent in our culture is video games. As it is becoming more prominent, it is also evolving throughout the years. Video games now are becoming more complex and influential in our society. People can use this type of entertainment was a way to relieve stress or a way to socialize with others online. Video games is almost available everywhere, from video consoles to cell phones, most Americans have played a video game before. The American myth is that Americans mostly view video games as a way to pass time, but they never see pass it to notice the influence and impacts it have in society. Americans believe this myth because our culture focuses more on what the public media broadcasts. There are cases where positive and negative aspects of video games were shown, but in reality, most Americans does not notice its significance in our lives. Most Americans feel that video games are just a source of entertainment; however, upon closer inspection we see that it is actually socially and psychologically impactful in our culture.
Entertainment is a necessity in American culture. With the abundance of leisure time in the daily lives of American, there are varieties of entertainment provided to use up our leisure time. In late 1900s, entertainment consist mostly from television and movie theatre. It was before the time where the internet existed or personal computers were becoming popular. When the first video game console was developed, it was already becoming a popular source of entertainment for both children and adults. Later in the 21th century, video games have evolved dr...

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...out researchers at Queen Mary University of London and University College London found that video game players who are exposed to games which requires organization showed improvement in their strategic thinking, flexibility and critical thinking. The volunteers of this research played multiple games for forty hours over the span of six to eight weeks. They were also given psychological tests before the games and after to see if there is a change in the results. The results shows that different genre of games provides different learning experiences and different improvements of cognitive flexibility. But researchers does not know if the cognitive flexibility improvements are permanent or not. This article will provide evidence and research on the importance of researching video games as it could provide benefits and negative aspects of video games toward the players.