Video games change the ways of relating to others and to reality

by time news

Time.news – Video games have overcome the barrier of entertainment to become sophisticated tools for socialization and technological progress, which also revolutionizes our own concept of free time. And it overcomes it by entering a socializing dimension. The Spanish El Paìs reports the phenomenon: video games that present stories that try to educate or sensitize players, generating empathy thus transcending the initial purpose with which they were born seventy years ago, simple entertainment. Now, instead, they are able to “change the ways of relating to others and to reality” surrounding.

Historicizes El Paìs: usually video games “have been associated with the image of the antisocial child or the maladjusted adult” so much so that “the abusive use has generated dangerous addictions such as alcoholism or drug addiction”.

But nothing could be more wrong, because “the industry, in the meantime, has grown to become a sector that generates more revenue than music and cinema combined, cwith a turnover that last year amounted to around 180,000 million euros worldwide. And, although it is still a long way from television, the means of mass entertainment par excellence, the business is growing ”.

Games have left the living rooms of homes and have been introduced into academia, culture, hospitals and every corner of society. “They are the first contact we make with technology and the first way we establish human-machine interaction“, explains to the daily Euridice Cabanes, philosopher of science specialized in the sector, who underlines:” Video games have overcome the barrier of free time and permeate more and more areas of society, such as economy, health, education “.

In short, this dynamic with video games underwent a significant boost in 2020 because in that year, during the covid-19 pandemic, “the WHO recommended turning to video games as an escape route to improve mental health in a state of home imprisonment “.

The thesis that they can be beneficial for the mind was backed up at the time by a study from the University of Oxford, which showed a relationship between playing time and people’s well-being, according to a survey of over 2,700 people. So if virtual worlds had always been a refuge for some players, what happened then was a radical change: those virtual spaces were no longer a cause for shame.

Cabañes holds che the reality will be “more and more like a video game”. Reason why if video games are a key to technological advancements, mental health, socialization and culture, where else can they go? finally asks El Paìs, who concludes: “Reason why“ more and more projects are using these technologies to make life easier ”.

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