The Good Thing About Video Games: Nothing

BY JULIA GROVER-BARREY OTR/L
FOUNDER OF IN-TUNED®

Video games are like “empty” calories. They don’t add positive value.

Just like junk food, video games harm proportional to the regularity of indulgence. And just like junk food, video games replace something better.

What is better? Almost everything else.

Boredom is better…it forces use of imagination.

Mischief is better. It takes thought, initiative and has concrete consequences.

Don’t buy into: it helps with fine motor skills, processing speeds or visual perceptual development. All BUNK.

It’s not uncommon for children to avoid using their thumbs. I fear this may be an evolutionary adaptation since many people don’t use manual tools or engage in handwork to any extent anymore. Go into a general education classroom and observe how most children hold onto their pencil these days. The thumb is playing a lesser role at controlling the act of handwriting. 

As for processing speed…maybe the gamer can process the nuances of a particular game faster with practice, but this is nontransferable to anything functional. In fact, gamer kids can’t slow their processing down enough to engage in more measured tasks.  Handwriting again suffers. It’s hard to produce quality, accurate and legible work when you can’t slow down your racing thoughts and your toggling hand.

Staring at a flat screen does nothing for visual system development. In fact, children who routinely play video games often lack many ocular motor skills, such as visual attention (leading to other attention problems by the way) requiring developmental movement and engaging in 3D to refine. Guess what important activity is impacted by poor ocular motor skills…handwriting maybe?

We trade perfection of physical skills, self-regulation, thought inventory, social capital and more dangerously social consciousness for gaming.

Video games are not innocuous or “empty”, but come with mostly unseen, yet not unrealized consequences.

I’d rather eat a hamburger with a double order of fries, at least I know the trade-off.

Julia