The Effects of Video Games on Reaction Times

This study investigates the effects of video game play on reaction time. Past research/studies indicate that playing video games has a positive effect on reaction time under the scope of video game players (VGP) have faster reaction time (RT) compared to non-gamers (NG). On the other hand, past studies indicate that video games not only have an effect on reaction times but video games also has an effect on divided attention, attention allocation, visual attention etc. In this research, investigator used simple reaction time task where a program that detects participants reaction time, when did they pressed the button or the time that participants pressed the button. Results of the current study showed that there is no significant difference in reaction times between VGP and NG. For future suggestion, both simple reaction time task and a choice reaction time task can be used to investigate deeper the connection between video gaming and reaction times. Keywords: video games, gamer, non-gamer, simple reaction time, younger adults, older adults.