Video Games Effect the Brain- For Better and For Worse

In Douglas A. Gentile's article, "Video Games Effect the Brain- For Better and For Worse," he directs the first half of his article directly to video game addicts. He uses facts that prove that video games help strengthen our brain capacity. He states, "Well designed video games are natural teachers... Gamers repeat actions as they play, and repetition is one precondition for long-term potentiation—the strengthening of brain-cell connections (synapses) through repeated use that is thought to underlie memory storage and learning." Gentile's statement helps strengthen a video gamers argument that video games actually make them smarter. 

Gentile also writes that video games can improve your periphery vision. He states, "One neuroscience study, published in Nature, showed that playing action video games can improve visual attention to the periphery of a computer screen."He also shares other studies that show that video games help make fine discriminations among different shades of grey, and how they improve one's ability to work as a group. Each of these studies help a video gamer persuade his or her parents to believe that video games improve their life style, rather than hinder their ability to interact with society. 

Gentile goes on to explain that video games improve a surgeon's ability to perform surgery. A survey was conducted in which 33 laparoscopic surgeons played video games for different time periods. They found that "a surgeons’ amount of game time was a better predictor of advanced surgical skill in the training drills than their number of years in practice or number of real-life surgeries performed."

By sharing all of these statistics, video game addicts can prove that video games improve their mental capacity, their vision, their ability to perform group work, and their ability to focus. This strengthens a gamers argument that video games are not a harmful addiction, because they improve one's lifestyle.