PURPOSE OF REVIEW There are many different factors involved in how and why people develop problems with video game playing. One such set of factors concerns the structural characteristics of video games (i.e., the structure, elements, and components of the video games themselves). Much of the research examining the structural characteristics of video games was initially based on research and th...

This study used survey methodology to measure opinions of 13to 15-year-olds (N = 176) about sedentary and active video games and the relative amount of time spent with those games, and evaluated correlations between time spent with those two types of games and the body mass index (BMI) of the respondent. Results showed no evidence of any correlation between BMI and relative time devoted to vide...

CONTEXT Children's exposure to violence in the media remains a source of public health concern; however, violence in video games rated T (for "Teen") by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has not been quantified. OBJECTIVE To quantify and characterize the depiction of violence and blood in T-rated video games. According to the ESRB, T-rated video games may be suitable for persons ...

As constructivism gains more popularity in undergraduate engineering classrooms, video games are used with more frequency for instructional purposes. In fact, many of the principles of constructivism are practiced in the classroom through the use of video games. Since the beginning of this educational trend, several studies have been conducted to evaluate the effect that some learning or recrea...

There is growing interest in the employment of serious video games in science education, but there are no clear design principles. After surveying previous work in serious video game design, we highlighted the following design principles: 1) engage the students with narrative (hero, story), 2) employ familiar gameplay mechanics from popular video games, 3) engage students into constructive tria...

Whether video game play affects social behavior is a topic of debate. Many argue that aggression and helping are affected by video game play, whereas this stance is disputed by others. The present research provides a meta-analytical test of the idea that depending on their content, video games do affect social outcomes. Data from 98 independent studies with 36,965 participants revealed that for...

For decades, the precise influence of video games on players has been acutely argued. During that time, researchers have also been unable to agree on the effects that video games have on cognitive control. Some researchers found that video games are detrimental to sustaining one’s attention span, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Meanwhile, some other researchers have claimed that vide...

BACKGROUND Past research has found that playing a classic prosocial video game resulted in heightened prosocial behavior when compared to a control group, whereas playing a classic violent video game had no effect. Given purported links between violent video games and poor social behavior, this result is surprising. Here our aim was to assess whether this finding may be due to the specific game...

CREATED IN 1994, THE ENTERtainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rates video games according to the categories listed in the BOX and using content descriptors, which game manufacturers display on the game box to inform consumer choices. Analogous to the G rating of films, the E rating (for “Everyone”) of video games suggests suitability for all audiences, but the E rating does not mean violence-...

We examined the association between playing sexist video games and sexist attitudes. Undergraduate students (61 men and 114 women) indicated the level of perceived sexism present in their most frequently played video games. Students also completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), which measures both hostile and benevolent sexism. As predicted, men who played video games pe...