There are thousands of hospitals in the world that use video games as part of analgesic therapy. They serve as rehabilitation and support to some treatments, but they also have benefits for healthy boys and girls, for adolescents that improve their attention, their reading ability.
Video games, making responsible use of them, have all kinds of advantages. Of course, it is essential that their parents or guardians are aware of and responsible for the titles and bet on age-appropriate games. In no case does it make sense to buy horror games for five-year-olds, of course. But making correct use of them, it has been shown that they have countless advantages.
Studies have shown that they encourage socialization between boys and girls in titles like Minecraft, for example. Not only do we learn to socialize, but the online or local multiplayer game also encourages cooperation with other people. Titles like Overcooked or Moving Out cannot be beaten if all players do not cooperate with each other and coordinate, they dialogue and communicate. But in addition, children and adolescents learn to make decisions throughout a game. Every little decision that they face on a level helps them to choose, to demonstrate their preferences. And, in case of error, tolerance for failure is trained in these titles in which we have all fallen at some time or have had to restart the game
As Begoña Gross Salvat explains in “The socio-educational dimension of video games” (2000) Video games allow the learning of different types of skills and strategies, help to stimulate the relationships between the children in the group and allow the introduction of the analysis of values and behaviors from the reflection of the contents of the games themselves. As long as, explains the author, a series of criteria in game selection such as the age at which they are destined, the time dedicated, the contents it has and the design of the activities that will be carried out with it, as well as the evaluation of results.
Active participation
Roblox is one of the most popular games among young people and teenagers, a free title in which we can create our own games or play those of others. A game to create games based on building structures and solving problems. But, above all, applauded from the educational aspect and taking into account the theory of Constructionism developed by Seymour Papert from the MIT Media Lab.
The theory of Constructionism explains that children learn best if they are actively involved in design and construction. In addition, this theory maintains that learning is accelerated if children participate in a public forum. That is why the game does not simply entertain or encourage creativity.
Reading ability and visual attention
Focusing on what is happening on the screen also improves results at points such as reading ability or visual attention. A study carried out by the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) of San Sebastián and the University of Grenoble Alpes (in France), published in Scientif Reports, talks about the improvement of video games in users thanks to the fact that they focus their attention on screen and train these skills. The goal of the research is to use elements of video games to help treat people with dyslexia.
In total, 36 adults were divided into the study. Of them, half were adults who regularly played action video games. The other half did not play. The tests consisted of displaying a row of six different consonants for 200 milliseconds to see how many letters each of the adults on the test could process. And a second test where for 60 milliseconds you had to read pronounceable but meaningless terms. The results showed that those who if they played video games they solved both tests better so using these games could be from great help to fight dyslexia that affects 10% of the population.
“Certain action video games are unpredictable and force the person to always be attentive and react quickly,” explains Alexia Atnzaka, a researcher at BCBL. “However, the exact components of action video games that foster a visual attention improvement is still being investigated”, He added in 2017 with the presentation of the study.
There are already video games and methods that seek to use video games to improve reading ability but also to prediagnosing dyslexia. It is the case of Glifing, a “reading training method that improves reading speed and comprehension in a very short time, through video games.” It is an online tool that is currently used in schools and cabinets and that only takes a few minutes a week: each training lasts less than 20 minutes and is done four days a week to improve reading and comprehension. The idea is to use the game in an entertaining and fun way but it can also be used in a customizable way depending on each child, adapting level and motivation.
Glifing is a project that has the support of hospitals such as Sant Joan de Déu or Vall d’Hebron, from official bodies such as the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities or the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona. In addition, it has the support of the Spanish Dyslexia Federation, which signed an agreement with Glifing in 2020 so that all its associates could use the treatment in the cabinets in which it was treated with this method.
And the violence?
The issue that is always addressed is the relationship between video games and violence. Is demonstrated? As Santiago Gardía Cernaz collects in his publication “Videogames and violence: A review of the effects research line” (2007) the issue of violence in video games has been present in the scientific literature since they were launched on the market.
The University of Oxford published in 2019 A study in Royal Society Open Science where he denied that there was evidence of the relationship of the aggressive behavior in young people and the time they spend playing violent video games. “Despite interest in this matter from parents and legislators, research has not shown that it is something to worry about,” explained Professor Andre Przybylski, Research Director. “The idea that violent video games lead to more assaults in the real world is very popular, but has not been proven,” he adds. “Our findings suggest that researchers’ biases may have influenced previous studies on this topic and distorted our understanding of the effects of video games,” says study co-author Dr. Netta Weinstein of Cardiff University. Something that García Cernaz also points out during his analysis of this correlation.
But this is not the only study that says there is no conclusive evidence about the relationship between the two. Also a late 2020 study published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking collects these theories. The study, called “Growing Up with Grand Theft Auto: A 10-Year Study of Longitudinal Growth of Violent Video Game Play in Adolescents” he followed the development of young people of both sexes and their relationship with videogames for ten years. Participants were divided into three groups for follow-up: those who played from an early age, those who played violent video games “moderately” from an early age, and those who did not play these games. What was the conclusion? The adolescents studied did not show a more aggressive behavior than those who did not invest hours in the consumption of the same titles.
Therapeutic videogames
According to a study published by University of Notthingham Professor Mark Griffiths in the British Medical Journal, video games can be helpful in relieving pain. The ability to withdraw when we are aware of the game makes the effects of pain are mitigated. According to the editorial in the medical journal, Griffiths explains that the cognitive distraction provided by the video game reduces the perception of pain and some patients need less pain medication. For example, video games are used to chemotherapy patients or in pain treatment units, for example.
In 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration released a statement in which it defended the prescription of therapeutic video games for children between eight and twelve years old with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. Jan was communicated we can read how the EndeavorRX game is recommended after having done up to five clinical studies and having tested it in 600 children with attention deficit. In a third of the minors, the attention deficit disappeared after four weeks.
Posttraumatic stress
Not only do they have benefits for children at the level of learning, memory or attention. Video games are also used as part of the rehabilitation or therapy of all kinds of diseases, for children and adults. For example, Microsoft has a partnership with the US Veterans Administration to help soldiers wounded in battle or those who have been psychologically affected. Microsoft announced in 2019 that it was using the Xbox Adaptive Controller, as we can read in the Washington Post, in more than twenty veteran centers in order to overcome post-traumatic stress and as a therapeutic use. According to the Microsoft project, video games could become a tool to improve cognitive processing, decision making or to improve motor skills of these people. And so it shows a study published in 2019 with a group of veterans. “Gambling can promote a psychological escape and can provide users with benefits such as trust, social connection, employment opportunities, leadership or personal growth,” said the study that included 20 participating veterans between 25 and 62 years of age.
Not just for veterans but for adults or children who have been stroke victims. According to researchers at the Researchers at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) in San Sebastián and the Imperial College in London, video games can be used as therapy. I know would complement physical treatments of patients with video game work. The study, published in PNAS, explains how to use these therapies with cognitive training capable of increasing attention in patients.
In Spain, video games are already used to support other therapies. As the pediatric specialist Esther Martínez García explains in an article in Mapfre, the video game application can be used to comprehensive rehabilitation for people with physical disabilities, for rehabilitation with acquired brain damage, for spinal cord injuries or for people with cognitive impairment thanks to the fact that they are games used to improve postural control, balance or coordination.
These titles or video games are also of great help in the mental training of people with multiple sclerosis. This is demonstrated by a study from the Sapienza University of Rome published in the journal Radiology. The use of the saga Brain Training through puzzles and memory games and the subsequent evaluation with cognitive tests and magnetic resonance imaging showed that twelve patients of the twenty-four analyzed had had a significant increase in the functional connectivity of the thalamus. “This means that even a widely used and widely used tool such as video games can promote brain plasticity and aid in cognitive rehabilitation for people with neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis,” explains Dr. De Giglio in the study.