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Today, in the United States, 91% of children between
the ages of 2 and 17 play video games (NPD Group,
2011), and a nationally representative study of U.S.
teenagers found that up to 99% of boys and 94% of girls
play these games (Lenhart et al., 2008). In the United States
alone, video games brought in over $25 billion in 2010,
more than doubling Hollywood’s 2010 box office sales of
$10.8 billion in the United States and Canada (Motion
Picture Association of America, 2011). Against this backdrop of nearly ubiquitous play, the popular press regularly
pulses out urgent warnings against the perils of addiction to
these games and their inevitable link to violence and aggression, especially in children and adolescents. Indeed, the
vast majority of psychological research on the effects of
“gaming” has been focused on its negative impact: the
potential harm related to aggression, addiction, and depression (e.g., Anderson et al., 2010; Ferguson, 2013; Lemola
et al., 2011). It is likely that this focus will not diminish in
the near future, in part because of the enormous media
attention garnered when mass killings (e.g., the Columbine
High School slayings in 1999) are associated with youth
who play violent video games (Ferguson, 2007). Most
recently (December 2012), the revelation that the Sandy
Hook Elementary School gunman played shooter games
directly resulted in President Obama requesting Congress
to allocate $10 million for research on the effects of violent
media, especially video games (Obama & Biden, 2013).
Decades of valuable research on the effects of violent
video games on children’s and adolescents’ aggressive
behavior already exists, and this is indeed an important
body of work to consider. However, we argue that in order
to understand the impact of video games on children’s and
adolescents’ development, a more balanced perspective is
needed, one that considers not only the possible negative
effects but also the benefits of playing these games. Considering these potential benefits is important, in part, because the nature of these games has changed dramatically
in the last decade, becoming increasingly complex, diverse,
realistic and social in nature (Ferguson & Olson, 2013). A
small but significant body of research has begun to emerge,
mostly in the last five years, documenting these benefits.
We propose that, taken together, these findings suggest that
video games provide youth with immersive and compelling
social, cognitive, and emotional experiences. Further, these
experiences may have the potential to enhance mental
health and well-being in children and adolescents.
In this article, we summarize the research on the
benefits of playing video games, focusing on four main
domains: cognitive (e.g., attention), motivational (e.g., resilience in the face of failure), emotional (e.g., mood management), and social (e.g., prosocial behavior) benefits. By integrating insights from developmental, positive, and social psychology, as well as media psychology, we propose
some candidate mechanisms by which playing video games
fosters real-world benefits. Our hope is to provide strong
enough evidence and a theoretical rationale to inspire new
programs of research on the largely unexplored mental
health benefits of gaming. Finally, we end with a call to
intervention and prevention researchers to test the potential
positive uses of video games, and we suggest several promising directions for doing so.
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