Games to do you good

摘要

In the month after its release, the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops had been played for the equivalent of 68,000 years worldwide. Children in the United States played an average of 1 hour and 13 minutes of video games every day in 2009 - a nearly threefold increase from 10 years earlier1. And people of all ages are playing. Only 18% of US gameplayers are under 18 years old; nearly one-third are over 50. Video games are associated with a variety of negative outcomes, such as obesity, aggressiveness, antisocial behaviour and, in extreme cases, addiction2. At the same time, evidence is mounting that playing games can have beneficial effects on the brain.