Almost every week there is some type of article or study on whether or not video games are bad for children and adults to spend time playing.  However, cognitive researcher, Daphne Bavelier, takes a different approach narrowing in on the effects that fast-paced video games, including action-packed shooter games, have on the brain and our ability to learn and multitask.  She begins by immediately dismissing that doing too much of anything is not good for you especially binge playing video games.  Contrary to popular belief, Bavelier actually proves that video games do not lead to attention problems or greater distractibility.  She claims that people who play action games actually have a more efficient parietal lobe, frontal lobe, as well as anterior cingulate which all in some way or another determine someone’s measurement of attention and ability to multitask.  She performed several studies such as having subjects name the color of the text of different words as opposed to saying the word that the texts spells.  Another study tested the ability to track several moving objects at once and decide where the specific ones are when they stop.  For all of the studies, people who play action games were able to do better at the tasks.

I thought it was very interesting that the success of the tasks had such a strong correlation with individuals who play action video games; however, I wonder what other confounding variables could have effected the outcome.  On the other hand, I still agree with Bavelier in that if action video games, even violent ones, are played an appropriate amount they can probably be very stimulating to the brain allowing individuals to be better at multitasking.

https://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games#t-1054450