Students who game more than 20 hours a week may develop skills for future careers, but research shows that gaming too much does more harm than good.

Dr. Brad Bushman, a psychologist at The Ohio State University, has written extensively on the effects of video games and has published several articles about the subject.

“We know there’s a negative correlation between the amount of time people spend playing video games and their grades in school,” Bushman said.

“If your goal is to do better in school, it’d probably be better for your time to do homework rather than be playing video games.”

Bushman, who teaches a class on video games, said he also believes that games can have positive effects if used inside of the classroom.

“There’s research showing that video games can be more effective in teaching things like math or history because it’s interactive,” Bushman said. “Whenever you can make something more interactive, that’s when learning occurs.”

Zachary Harris, junior integrated social studies major, plays video games as a way to relax after classes or while doing homework.

Harris said he plays video games approximately 25 hours a week as a way to help him refocus when he is studying.

“Usually when I am doing homework and I need a break, I play a quick game and it refreshes me,” Harris said. “I’ve never not gotten homework done because I was playing video games.”

Harris said his grades have not been affected by his gaming and have actually improved over time despite the large number of hours he spends playing video games.

Jeff Paroda, freshman exploratory major, said he plays roughly 25 to 30 hours of video games a week, with most of his time devoted to the strategy game StarCraft.

Paroda said he thinks it’s possible that people can transfer knowledge learned in video games to other areas of their lives.

“When you think about it, people who are normally good at video games are considered geeks and are smarter people,” Paroda said.

Bushman said this concept of learning a skill in a video game and applying it to real life is called transference and is possible, but examples of transference have been mostly negative.

“Studies on racing games show that you are a riskier driver after playing them,” Bushman said. “It causes you to take risks you might not normally take.”

Bushman said there are also positive examples of transference.

“A recent study found surgeons who played video games were faster when they did their surgeries and made fewer errors because they had better hand-eye coordination,” Bushman said.

Bushman also said students cannot improve their grades by passively playing video games for several hours a day.

“You have to pay attention to learn,” Bushman said.

Contact Eva Graening at [email protected].