Video Games’ Influence on Social Skills—An Overstated Concern

Video games have been a large part of my life. Ever since my early childhood experiences with the Gameboy Color, gaming has amused, confounded, challenged, frustrated, and trained me. Whether it be in strategy, hand-eye coordination, problem-solving, or teamwork, every level completed and every “game-over” came with a small lesson attached. Gaming has consumed enormous chunks of my time, but has left me better off, over all, teaching me to work methodically towards objectives, hone skills, and reassess my approach to difficult situations. This positive assessment of gaming is consistent with the self-assessment of most gamers. Sadly, the media often portrays us as time-wasting, button-mashing, zombie-slaying social misfits, or worse. Articles across the internet increasingly attack video games as unhealthy and unsafe. Halo reduces brain function! Donkey Kong reduces empathy! The list goes on. But the main charge appears to be that gaming impedes healthy socialization. I argue, however, that while some gamers are socially awkward, claims about the adverse social effects of gaming are grossly overstated.

The media is regularly buzzing about gaming’s negative social effects, but such stories often misinterpret and skew data, resulting in little more than sensationalism. Two articles are prime examples of this problem: a Fiscal Times piece entitled, “Yes, Video Games Really Are Ruining Your Kid’s Social Skills,” and one from Daily Mail entitled, “Is Minecraft Ruining Children’s Imagination?” Both articles share a distrust of video games, and yet, neither one presents quality evidence to support its claims. The Fiscal Times article, for example, links to a study that analyzed the ability of children to read facial expressions after attending a nature retreat devoid of electronics. The article misinterprets the study’s findings that the children who attended the retreat performed only marginally better than the control group. The researchers acknowledged they could not “disentangle” various dynamics of the social experiment, suggesting that the effect of electronic gaming on social skills or empathy were not clearly understood (Uhls). Nevertheless, the article describes the study’s inconclusive results as “clear.” (Grgurich). Meanwhile, the article from the Daily Mail accuses Minecraft, a popular children’s game where players design entire worlds out of blocks, of limiting creativity. Serious planning, improvising, and, above all, imagination, are required to succeed in this game; this I know from personal experience. Despite this, O’Callaghan, the author of the piece, reports that a new study, which he fails to cite, shows that Minecraft limits children’s imagination by being too repetitive and “structured.” If O’Callaghan is fairly describing this phantom study, it may as well have included Tinker Toys and Legos in the same indictment. Both articles, in fact, either misunderstand or mischaracterize the findings of research on gaming to defend their anti-gaming views.

Media outlets like Daily Mail and The Fiscal Times are taking marginal and inconclusive scientific findings and are using them to cast suspicion on video games. It is true that some current research has indicated that video games can have negative effects on people’s social skills, in certain demographics; however, the media tends to misconstrue and overstate these studies. Research by Rachel Kowert, a member of the University of Münster’s Communications Department, shows that social harm to gamers has been grossly exaggerated. A study of nearly one thousand participants revealed that, out of six social skill subclasses of emotional or social expressivity, sensitivity, and control, only social expressivity produced a negative correlation between itself and gaming. It’s true the study showed some negative social effects can result from gaming, but according to Kowert, the data indicates the “unreliability of the claims that increased online video game involvement inevitably leads to worse social outcomes” because the results are hardly noteworthy (“Social Reputation”). Kowert has shown that the negative effects of video games are miniscule compared to the popular claims against them.

In addition to misrepresenting research, media sources struggle to acknowledge studies showing gaming’s discrete benefits to certain groups. In her study of people suffering from attachment issues, Rachel Kowert found that online video game communities served “critical attachment functions” for people with attachment avoidance (“Social Comfort”). Thus, video games actually provided socially beneficial interactions for people that struggle with such interactions offline. A similar finding was made by Arzu Özen out of Anadolu University. Özen found that digital games and activities shared between normal and autistic children actually improved the autistic child’s ability to socialize. Parents reported better social interaction from their autistic child, further supporting the idea that video games can, in some cases, improve the social capacity of those who are actually struggling the most. The naysaying media, however, do not acknowledge these findings and choose to publish article after article denouncing games for their marginal negative effects.

By any fair assessment of the current science on this subject, video games have had a negligible negative influence over people’s ability to interact socially, and have even helped those who struggle with social interactions. And yet, the apparent convictions of media sources like Daily Mail and The Fiscal Times that video gaming is dangerous and harmful continue to frame their discussions of gaming and gaming culture. The science, however, shows that video games do not have a profound and harmful impact on most people’s lives. They don’t tend to make gentle people violent or moral people unethical. They’re games. They entertain. To call them a godsend or panacea would be an exaggeration, but to call them a scourge to child development is outright deceit.

Works Cited

Grgurich, John. “Yes, Video Games Really Are Ruining Your Kid’s Social Skills.” The Fiscal Times. The Fiscal Times, 12 Sept. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2016.

Kowert, Rachel. “(A)Social Reputation: Exploring the Relationship between Online Video Game Involvement and Social Competence.” Computers in Human Behavior 29.4 (2013): 1872-878. Science Direct. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.

Kowert, Rachel. “Playing for Social Comfort: Online Video Game Play as a Social Accommodator for the Insecurely Attached.” Computers in Human Behavior 53 (2015): 556-66. Science Direct. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.

O’Callaghan, Jonathan. “Is Minecraft Ruining Children’s Imagination? Kids Must Learn How to Deal with Boredom without Video Games, Warn Experts.” Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers Ltd., 18 Dec. 2014. Web. 15 Feb. 2016.

Özen, Arzu. “Effectiveness of Siblings-Delivered IPad Game Activities in Teaching Social Interaction Skills to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.” Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice 15.5 (2015): 1287-303. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.

Uhls, Yalada T. “Five Days at Outdoor Education Camp without Screens Improves Preteen Skills with Nonverbal Emotion Cues.” Computers in Human Behavior 39 (2014): 387-92. Science Direct. Web. 15 Feb. 2016.