Bianca Rodriguez 

Professor Zubarava 

Writing and Rhetoric 

14 April 2022 

Annotated Bibliography 

Thesis: Video games are commonly thought to be detrimental to one’s life. While there are instances where this is true, there is considerable research demonstrating how video games can be beneficial to one’s life. Therefore, it is unfair to say that every person who plays video games is harming their life. 

 

Bavelier, Daphne. “Your Brain on Video Games.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Nov. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktsFcooIG8. 

 

In Daphne Bavelier’s TED Talk, she breaks down common misconceptions about the effects of video games, specifically action-packed first-person shooter (FPS) games. These misconceptions include screen time weakens one’s perception skills and that these games cause attention problems. She discusses how those who play these games have a greater perception ability compared to those who do not play them. She also says that those who play these FPS games can maintain a considerable amount of focus on a particular thing more than those who do not play these games. She compares video games to wine; both are unhealthy when overindulged, but in healthy amounts there are more benefits compared to not indulging in them at all. The overall message is that video games are beneficial in moderation, just like many other things in life. This TED Talk was made for a general audience with an interest in the topic, and not a scholarly audience, so the information was provided as such. 

I believe this source is beneficial to my work because it encompasses both misconceptions and facts about the effects of video games. I think it is important for my audience to see the misconceptions being specifically addressed and how those misconceptions are wrong. The information is geared toward a general audience, which makes the information more digestible to the general person. I believe my audience also falls under ‘the general person’ category, so this approach is fitting. The information will provide the viewers with a baseline for what the benefits of gaming can look like at a conceptual level. This source does not discuss the applications of gaming skills, but I will use other sources to cover the real-life applications of this information. 

 

Franceschini, Sandro, et al. “Action Video Games Make Dyslexic Children Read Better.” Current Biology, vol. 23, no. 6, 28 Feb. 2013, pp. 462–466, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.01.044. 

 

The authors of the article conducted research on the effects of video games on dyslexic children. They aimed to discover if playing action video games could strengthen their abilities. They tested reading, phonetics, and attention skills in the children prior to having them play a video game for twelve hours in one day, and then tested them again after completing the gaming session. They found that the children’s reading speed improved, without them losing their accuracy. This article was published in a scholarly journal, intended for a scholarly audience. 

It is important for my audience to see the ways in which video games can benefit diverse groups of people in the real world. This example is particularly effective because dyslexic people make up a great percentage of the population. Even if an individual audience member is not dyslexic, they are likely to know at least one person who is dyslexic. This information shows that playing video games is cognitively stimulating and can create noticeable improvement in one’s life. This information is also especially trustworthy because it is published in a scholarly article. I will use this information as an example of real-world application of video games.  

 

Jalink, M., et al. “The Effect of a Preoperative Warm-up with a Custom-Made Nintendo Video Game on the Performance of Laparoscopic Surgeons.” Surgical Endoscopy, vol. 29, no. 8, Aug. 2015, pp. 2284–90. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libdatabase.newpaltz.edu/10.1007/s00464-014-3943-6. 

 

The authors of this article investigated the effects of playing video games for laparoscopic surgeons. They had the surgeons play the game Underground for fifteen minutes before completing a laparoscopic exercise and compared their performance when they did not play the game before completing the exercise. They found that the surgeons performed faster when they had the fifteen-minute “warm-up” on Underground. This research was published in a scholarly journal for a scholarly audience. However, this research is limited to the effects of a particular game on a particular type of surgeon. 

A general audience has a basic understanding of a surgeon’s responsibility. They can recognize that it is important that a surgeon is precise and consistent. The audience knows that a surgeon’s responsibility is serious, and that their skills should be as sharp as possible. This makes this real-world example of a beneficial use of gaming effective to the viewers. The research presented in this article shows that gaming improves a surgeon’s precision, consistency, and overall speed. Because this information was published in a scholarly journal, it is more likely to be taken seriously by my audience.  

 

Lorentz, Pascaline, et al. “The Experience and Benefits of Game Playing.” Cyberpsychology, vol. 9, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 52–56. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libdatabase.newpaltz.edu/10.5817/CP2015-3-1. 

 

The authors of this article intend to break down the history of video game research. They describe that when video games first came into the popular world, they were originally deemed dangerous to children. After this, extensive research was then completed around the world to investigate this hypothesis. As research carried on throughout the years, scientists began to discover the cognitive benefits gaming has on all ages. They also discovered that it was unfair to compare video games to other media, such as television and film, because gaming requires active responses from the engaged player. This article was also published in a scholarly journal, meaning its audience is primarily scholars. 

I think this information is particularly effective for my audience because, similarly to the TED Talk, this describes what we used to believe about video games and how it was wrong. It also mentions how research on video games has developed into how we understand them today. I think my audience should know that there was an abundance of incorrect assumptions about gaming in the past, as described in this article. I intend on presenting this information alongside the TED Talk, both prior to introducing the real-world examples. I think this will set a foundation for the following information presented in this article. 

 

McCord, Alex, et al. “Short video game play improves executive function in the oldest old living in residential care.” Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 108, 2020, 106337, ISSN 0747-5632, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106337. 

 

The authors of this article conducted research on how elderly people would be affected by playing the Star Wars: Battlefront video game. It looked at how their cognitive ability would change after playing the video game for three weeks compared to those who were not given the game to play. They found that the elderly people who were given the video game cognitively improved. Their visual attention, task switching domains, and working memory improved. This information was published in a scholarly journal, which means that it is geared towards a scholarly audience. 

I think it is important for my audience to see concrete instances of when playing video games directly benefited people. This research presents a specific example of the cognitive benefits of playing video games, and I intend to use this research as such. Because elderly people are widely known to show a decline in their cognitive ability, it is particularly impactful to my audience to see that video games improve the cognitive ability of older people. It is even more impactful that this research was published in a scholarly article because the audience understand the legitimacy of this information. Additionally, viewers can relate this own information to their own grandparents or other elderly people in their lives. They can conclude that gaming is much more of a realistic solution to elderly people’s cognitive abilities due to their limited physical capability.