Imagine you’re on a plane.

It’s a crowded plane, but two little girls around the age of one stand out to you.

Most of us think that boredom is a negative thing. We’re continually pushed to always stay busy, always running off to the next thing. Society says that being busy is a good thing and boredom should be kept at bay. But did you know that a little boredom can be good for boosting your creativity? Your boredom can actually be a positive thing and can encourage your mind to daydream, create, and construct new ideas.

Reading vs. gaming: the never ending debate. Is one better than the other? Gaming, when used excessively and with addictive tendencies, can be detrimental to the brain. It can foster addiction, numb your brain and feelings, and when used in excess, can destroy personal, real life relationships. However, gaming also has positive effects on the brain. It can improve hand-eye coordination, can introduce children to technology, and can provide pain relief to patients undergoing painful procedures or those living with chronic pain.

If you think that video games can’t provoke real, physiological responses, think again. A research article covered by NPR talks about Sam Brown, an Afghanistan veteran that was severely burned in 2008 during his time of service. His body was horribly burned and his life is not the same as it used to be before that day. After several treatments, burn grafts, and other painkillers that simply can’t manage the level of pain he experiences at times, Brown talks about a game called SnowWorld, a virtual game that was created by researchers David Patterson and Hunter Hoffman.

If you’ve read The Hunger Games series, you know that the books are suspenseful, intense, and hard to put down. And if you’ve seen the movies, you know that they are just as powerful and imaginative. The Hunger Games will have you on the edge of your seat the whole time.  It is a fun and entertaining experience to read the books and see the movies, but looking deeper, The Hunger Games and other movies like it have become affecting our culture in different ways.

The creativity of two parents has been circulating all over social media in the past couple of weeks: every year, they devote a month to bringing their children’s plastic dinosaur figures to “life” each night as their children sleep. Parents everywhere are embracing this idea and in homes all over now, dinosaurs are coming to life every night. The phenomenon has even been nicknamed “Dinovember.” Every morning, the kids wake up to something new. Maybe one night the dinos get into the fruit bowl and the next night they get into the carton of eggs on the fridge and make a mess.

What happens to our minds when we dedicate hours upon hours on a specific task or activity? What does it look like when we give our brains over to a video game for hours or even days at a time? Dr. Robert Stickgold and his research team at Harvard University published an experiment in the research journal Science illustrating that people who played the video game Tetris for seven hours over a period of three days experienced hallucinatory replay of the activities as they fell asleep. This phenomenon is referred to as “The Tetris Effect”.[1]

There is much controversy surrounding gaming and the addictive nature of video games. Many people deny the power that gaming has on the mind and brush it off as an easy, harmless way to pass the time. For others, their marriages, their jobs, their health, and ultimately their lives are on the brink of complete destruction because of an addiction to games. Video games are like digital drugs that rewire the brain for good when used appropriately and moderately; however, like pharmaceutical drugs, can also harm if overused.

If your kids play hours and hours of video games every day, their brains are likely absorbing images of violence. These images are becoming engrained into their minds and after a time, can change the way they act, the way they process normal life issues, and the way they interact with you as parents. If your child has become addicted to their game console and you try taking it away from them, you may have experienced threats from them, and sometimes even threats of violence.

The laundry is piling up. The dirty dishes are stacked in the sink. You have at least five e-mails that you need to respond to and you just need a little bit of quiet time in order to catch up and keep your sanity. So, you pop in a DVD and turn on your children’s favorite cartoon. Sound familiar? It is fine to do this every once in a while, of course! But if the TV, your laptop, your Kindle, or iPad, is your go-to for entertaining your kids so you can get things done, there’s a problem.

There are always new video games being created and released.  Many of these video games are graphic, violent, or have other explicit content in them that simply are not fit for little kids, yet many parents don’t take the time to review them before purchasing.