Should Video Games Be Considered Therapy Research Paper

Jamie Samson

1st hour.

Should Video Games Be Considered Therapy?

Playing video games has become much more popular over the years. They can be played to chill out after a long day of school or work, or as fun, family friendly way for the whole family to get together. Some say that videogames are just a form of media, but for some people they might be much more.

Meditation is a form of therapy to help relax. It is a way to focus the mind and try to help with everyday stress. By using this same base idea of meditation, video games help people not to focus and only think about the stress and strain of life. Juan Alcibar, a rehabilitating soldier at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, says “When you’re just sitting in your room thinking about what

Mike Snider of USA Today wrote an article about parents letting their children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) play video games. The use of video games was prescribed by their psychologist. One child received standard neurofeedback treatment, but it had not worked, the child still had memory problems, according to his mother, Janet Herlihy, he now has learned to focus and memorize better from the skills he learned gaming, this effectively helped him with schooling and sports. Taking the the time to focus on one thing helped him in his everyday life. Her other son had trouble focusing while trying to read, an activity he once loved to do. Now after using the video game therapy, he is able to focus on the books and enjoy reading again.(Snider) The Herlihey children were both able to see the benefits from using the video games as a form of therapy. It helped them with many of things like reading, focusing, sports, etc. If video games can help kids with attention disorders, it can be said that video games can also help average children and people focus better on everyday

When a family has a game night and are acting as a team or trying to be the best this can be very strong group therapy. Before video games families would just play board and games. Modern parents can really enhance that game experience and still have hundreds about hundreds of healthy physical games or challenging puzzle games, that only help everyone in the family become better thinkers and problem solvers but also develops a strong bond, important in families.

When it comes to youth and video games many parents can take something that people disregard as unhealthy and the reason kids aren’t active and turn it into a helping activity. No matter what age people play video games the benefits outway the negatives. It doesn’t matter if you use it to relax after a long school or work day or a way to get some much needed exercise, video games have become a very standard thing and can be used for much more than just