Does Gaming Help or Hurt Procrastination?

 

Procrastination, one of the most common epidemics of our time. Pushing off our responsibilities until the last minute has been a huge issue within the last few years. Many online sources state that video games is one of the biggest sources of procrastination, but is it really?

Video games can encourage procrastination because of a few different reasons. The most obvious reason is that video games are fun. Most people play games because they are entertaining and hard to quit whenever you start playing them. But alone does not encourage procrastination, but video games can be addicting as well. This means that people could be procrastinating because they would rather be playing games instead of doing productive work. In conjunction with the two prior points, video games stimulate the brain and release dopamine, encouraging more addictive behaviors, and because the brain tends to lean towards things that cause comfort instead of something that might cause stress. This could be why video games encourage more procrastination.

 

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Just because the prior paragraph may be true, just because something is addictive doesn’t mean that people HAVE to be addicted to it. There are many vices in this world: alcohol, gambling, smoking, etc. but that doesn’t mean that everyone who partakes in gambling or drinking is addicted. The same applies with video games, sure it could be addicting for one individual, but it may not be the same for others. Television has the same effect. Why do people tend to watch TV instead of doing their work. Easy. It’s because the brain tends to subconsciously drift towards actions that warrant positive rewards. So procrastination is not caused by video games, but without discretion is could be.

Gaming Has Perks?

 One thing that surprises a lot of people is the amount of soft skills you can gain from playing games. For this post I have compared 2 different articles that explain the benefits of playing video games, except I believe one is much better than the other. One of the articles, coming from Game Quitters and the other coming from Understood.Org. Of these two articles one does a better job of going into more detail about the benefits of gaming than the other.

First, let's take a look at Understood's article. Understood's article is catered towards parents - outlining the upsides to gaming. The article consists of 6 short bullet points outlining a skill and why / how it is encouraged or taught. Some of the skills they reference are visual-spacial skills, flexible thinking, and understanding social life. There are a few more skills they reference, but they're not worth overviewing. Overall, I think this article does a good job of grabbing actually well-learned skills from gaming, but I feel they are only scratching the surface. They could be pursuing much more with this than they are.

The second article, the one from Game Quitters is catered towards a more broad audience, this could be for parents, gamers, or people purely interested in the topic. I really enjoy this article because they give a quick summary at the very beginning, a very short overview of all the points they are making. But as they progress down the list, they provide actual scientific experiments and studies conducted that prove their point. For example, they go into a lot of detail about more cognitive improvements. Or they also go into detail about faster decision making. Instead of just making comments out of pure emotion and personal experience, they are providing accurate information backed by research.

I believe that is one thing that makes an article or blog post go above and beyond expectations. Whenever a writer links to a source that has proven that they / their points are validated, it shows the amount of effort they put in. It also shows the difference between our two articles chosen, one focuses on personal experiences and the other utilizes actual research.

Top 3 Timeless Video Games

 Since the creation of video games in the 70s we’ve seen great leaps in technology, graphics, and gameplay. There have been several games that have paved the way for a new standard of games – games that have shifted the baseline for games. Keep in mind, I’m not an old head. I will not remember the times of the Atari and other revolutionary consoles. Also keep in mind that this list is highly subjective.

1. Zelda Ocarina of Time

I think this game does not need much introduction into why it was so revolutionary for gaming. The original Zelda, being a 2D dungeon crawling, explorative game was loved by many. With the release of the N64, Nintendo had big shoes to fill to keep the positive trend with Zelda games, and they blew it out of the water.

This game not only upheld the Zelda-like gameplay but made an amazing transition into the 3D game world. This game is nothing short of a masterpiece for its time. Now, the gameplay feels clunky in comparison to today’s standards, but I think this game deserves the love it has, as it defined a baseline for 3D dungeon crawling / exploration games moving forward.

2. Cuphead

This game is definitely one of the most controversial on this list, it didn’t really create a genre-defining gameplay loop or didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it was extremely ambitious and one of a kind. The creative thing about Cuphead is the game is entirely animated as if it was in the 1920s – an old cartoon. It does this extremely well too – everything is beautiful, the soundtrack stays true to the theme, and they blew everything away.

I included it on this list because we are currently in the time of Indie game developers, of independent studios making games. Taking into consideration that indie games are becoming as popular, if not more than big studios. Cuphead’s art style, makes it a work of art and makes other Indie companies work a little harder moving forward.

3. Elden Ring

The final entry on this list is a very new game. Elden Ring. Generating hype since it’s short announcement in 2019, Elden Ring has been the biggest roar in the gaming community. Learning from their previous mistakes in games, From Software created this masterpiece that shifted a difficult linear-based story game into an open-world masterpiece. 

Recently with the release of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, every company is trying to steal the same gameplay loop for a quick cash grab. Even in a time where companies try to push out an open-world cash grab, From Software perfected this masterpiece. Taking it’s own twist on the genre, ensuring it is never dull, and setting a standard for open world moving forward.