The year is 2019; We reside in an era in which technology has become ubiquitous in our everyday life. One piece of technology in particular which has had a profound impact on our lives is video games. The stereotype has long persevered that video games and those who play them suffer from many negative effects. Many people visualize gamers as an eclectic group of individuals who do not make up a noteworthy portion of the population, and video games themselves are often treated as a childish recreational activity without a real purpose or intrinsic value. These absurd notions could not be any further from the truth.

Video games have an appeal that transcends many demographic boundaries, such as age, gender, ethnicity, or educational attainment. We neglect to think about the extent and impact profoundly on our culture, our history, and our way of life. Video games impact society as a whole in an extremely beneficial way: They can be used to help attain goals and rehearse working towards them. They provide ample feedback, and reinforcement, along with boosts in self-esteem and confidence, and can also assist an individual in maintaining a record of their behavioral change. Video games' impact help facilitate learning; they permit individuals to experience novelty, curiosity, and challenges in a controlled, personalized environment that further stimulates the learning process. Lastly, purported negative effects such as addiction, increased aggression or violence, and various health consequences such as obesity tend to get far more media coverage than the positives.

As video games become more and more realistic, captivating, and exciting, more and more children and teenagers are becoming immersed in them. With the evolution of the internet, video games have transformed from a primarily single-player experience to one of the most social media in the world. The advent of Massively Multiplayer Online games has allowed gaming to become an internationally communal platform. In fact, 62% of gamers play games with others, either in-person or online. 77% of gamers play with others at least once a week, and 47% of gamers play social games. In addition, an overwhelming majority of gamers play games with their friends and family: 14% play with their spouse or significant other, 18% play with parents, 32% play with other family members, and 42% play with friends.

What do all of these statistics tell us? Video games have become an essential aspect of most Americans’ lives. For far too long people resisted acknowledging video games as relevant and beneficial to society. Instead, they would dismiss them reasoning that they were a mere waste of time, devoid of a real purpose. As aforementioned, these absurd notions could not be any further from the truth. When playing a game, you are an active participant; not a passive spectator. Because video games allow player decisions to affect what takes place on the screen and within the story, games have the potential to be a different experience every time. When we are playing a game – when we are tackling unnecessary obstacles – we are actively moving toward the positive end of the emotional spectrum. All of the neurological and physiological systems that underlie happiness – our attention systems, our reward center, our motivation systems, our emotion and memory centers – are fully activated through gameplay.

Additionally, there exists a wide array of research that evidently showcases that the benefits of playing video games greatly outweigh the negatives. For instance, video games provide a social form of entertainment, they encourage collaboration and teamwork and they offer countless opportunities to interact with others. Video games also contribute tremendously to developing capacities in fields such as reading, mathematics, technology, and problem-solving situations.

A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with endless optimism, on something in which we excel and value. Games have always been a way to improve the quality of life. It’s Their primary function: to create real positive emotions, real positive experiences, and real social connections during a difficult time. It is still the primary function of games for us today. They serve to improve our real life.