Week 5

In The Benefits of Playing Video Games by Granic et al., I found the information about cognitive benefits intriguing and especially in the context of gender. Going back to our readings and classroom conversations last week about gendered toys and girls being more open and creative with toys that they viewed as being feminine, this reading left me wondering how much shooter games appeal to girls. Shooter games in particular were shown to create “faster and more accurate attention allocation, higher spatial resolution in visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities.” Spatial skills in turn are a large predictor for “achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.” Thus, are these shooter games, or the gamer culture built around them, appealing enough to girls so that they can also reap the cognitive and creative benefits? Extending these thoughts to other minority groups, as brought up by Williams et al, can an increase in representation across video game characters have increased increased cognitive, emotional, or social benefits?