Are video games actually good for you?

It's the final boss fight,
I'm gonna get him this time.

Charging my laser, boom!

Barrel roll!

Oh, I got him, legendary loot.

Oh, I didn't see you all there.

Since I was young, my granny
has always been telling me

to "never sit too close to the TV
or the computer"

or else my eyes will "go square,"

as well as "you are what you eat,

but you are also what you play
on the computer,"

and perhaps most puzzling of all -

"Darling, how do I
google something again?"

In fact, the reason why I decided
to do this talk in the first place

was because I'd always hear
this negativity around the media

about video games.

This person killed someone,
did something violent,

because they played a video game.

I really didn't want
any of this negativity to be true,

so I decided to do a bit of research.

One of the first studies I looked at
was short but positive,

and it showed that playing Portal 2,
which is a very, very popular puzzle game,

improves spatial skills, problem-solving,
and persistence

more than the supposed
brain trainer Lumosity,

which is a browser-based brain trainer.

77 undergraduates sat a test
and then played eight hours

of either Portal 2 or Lumosity.

Afterward, they sat the same test again
and the results were pretty astounding.

The Portal 2 players had improved

their spatial skills, problem-solving,
and persistence by over 80%

when compared to the Lumosity players.

Now, this sounded pretty good,
but it gets even better.

This study is carried out
by Jeffrey Snodgrass,

who by the way has the best name
in science ever,

and I know a lot of good guys
in science, like the best,

and in this study, he examines different
types of video gaming experiences

and their effects on players' lives,

including their self-reported stress
levels, life satisfaction, and happiness.

In his study, Dr. Snodgrass and his team

examined the popular online game
World of Warcraft,

which currently has around 5.6 million
players worldwide.

In this game, players develop
virtual avatars

and complete tasks in cooperation
with other players.

Now the complex and highly interactive
nature of this type of game

can often lead players to feel as if
they're in some important sense

separate from the world outside
of the game.

These types of video games are commonly
known as MMO RPGs,

or massively multiplayer online
role-playing games.

Now, Dr. Snodgrass and his research team
noticed that

when players became very, very involved
when playing World of Warcraft

for a short to medium period of time,

after they finished play,

they reported high levels of stress relief
and tension relief.

However, Dr. Snodgrass and his team

also noted that if a player played
World of Warcraft,

became very immersed,

and then played for
a longer period of time,

they actually reported less stress relief
or even increases in stress.

So Dr. Snodgrass and his team noticed
this phenomenon happening so often,

they labeled it as
an immersive experience.

And when a player becomes deeply
immersed in a game like World of Warcraft,

or any other game, for that matter,

they can often lead players to feel as if
they're so involved with their character

that they forget the world
outside of the game

and can report positive and negative
stress relief and tension relief or gain

depending on how long they play for.

So quick little recap.

Some video games can improve
various skills,

like spatial skills, problem-solving,
and persistence,

and some can put you into a trance-like
state that alleviates stress and tension

in small to medium doses.

However, some of the negative effects
that video games can and do induce

certainly disheartened me
when I was doing my search.

This study features
172 high school students

each playing a violent video game,

such as GTA, or Grand Theft Auto,

or a non-violent video game,

such as 3-D minigolf or pinball.

They played this game for 35 minutes,

and were told that they could snack
from a bowl of M&Ms as they played.

However, they were warned that eating
too many of them was bad for their health.

Their level of self-control was measured
by whether they just couldn't resist

grabbing a fist full of those sweet
little chocolaty goodness pellets

and ramming them straight down
their throat,

or whether they did the impossible
and only ate two or three at a time.

It shocks me just thinking about it

and I honestly believe those people
should have movies based on them.

After finishing play, gamers head
to answer some questions.

On a one to seven scale,
completely agree to completely disagree,

participants answered questions like,

"Insulting a classmate is okay because
physically hurting them is far worse."

These types of questions are designed

to measure something called
moral disengagement,

or in layman's terms,

getting people to think of their behavior
in relative terms.

This experiment concluded with a test
that was designed to measure aggression.

Players took part in
a competitive reaction task,

so many fancy words in this study,

or a small game,

where the winner of each round was
allowed to blast the loser

with some loud and very unpleasant noise.

Their level of aggression was measured
by how long and how loud

the winners played this sound.

Now the results were probably
what you would expect,

but surprisingly consistent
across the board.

The people who played the violent
video game, GTA, Grand Theft Auto,

reported higher levels of aggression,

moral disengagement,

and less self-control

than the people who played
the non-violent video game,

3-D minigolf or pinball,

who, I will state again,
ate an impossibly small number of M&Ms,

like less than a kilogram.

How is that even possible?

And this last study proves that when
the media claims

that playing video games
leads to violence, as it does so often,

the claims themselves
actually lead to violence.

Bare with me a second.

Dr. Mario Vance conducted
a 7-year-long study

that measured the levels of aggression
in more than 1,000 volunteers

from gaming communities
across the world.

And the results show that increases in
overall aggression and violent tendencies

started when participants viewed
a news or media story

that claimed with usually no evidence

that playing video games caused you
to become an irrevocably violent murderer.

Dr. Mario Vance has stated before
that the mainstream media

has never liked video games,
but it's getting a bit silly now,

because whenever someone does
a violent thing

and it turns out they have played
video games before in the past,

even if it was Legends of Zelda
as a kid,

they are obviously a murderer
and should never be touched

or gone near.

So, from these various studies,

I tried to come to a definite conclusion -

video games are good for you,
or video games are bad for you.

And then it hit me.

The problem is that people are
looking for this definite yes or no answer

when there isn't one.

Video games alone don't cause people
to become more violent

and do violent things,

but they also don't cause you
to become more "smarterererer."

But, then again, these days when
we have such immersive

and wonderful devices,

like the Oculus Rift,

which is a virtual reality headset

that places a screen directly
in front of your eyes

and allows you to be inside
and control the character,

you have to wonder what the effects
of puzzle and violent video games,

like Portal 2
or Grand Theft Auto, will be.

When we're killing people in such
great levels of immersion

but solving puzzles in that level
of immersion, too,

you have to wonder if humanity
will just kind of desensitize ourselves

even more to this kind of violence,

or whether we will just become
a much more clever people.

All speculation aside though,

video games are
a truly wonderous invention.

They can transport us to a different,
more vibrant world,

let us do things that we'd otherwise
dream is impossible,

and are arguably the single greatest
invokers of emotion

as we become the people who can

make friendships, get betrayed,
go on killing sprees,

solve puzzles, uncover ancient artifacts,

and walk away from a really impressive
explosion

wearing awesome looking sunglasses
in slow motion.

But when you are playing video games,

there are three super important things
that you have to remember.

One, have fun.

Two, play in moderation.

And three, get that final boss.

Thank you.