Clinical Use of Video Games

Background

According to Ceranoglu (2010), the first video game materialized on an oscilloscope screen in 1958 (Kent, 2001) featuring a game of simulated tennis that amused visitors to Brookhaven National Laboratory. Thereafter, video games have become a major part of pop culture and the entertainment medium of choice for millions of people (Gettler, 2008; Poole, 2000). However, for many, video games were first created in the 1970s and since then have grown into a multibillion-dollar industry: the annual U.S. retail sales of video games reached more than $9.9 billion in 2004 alone (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2010; Sestir & Bartholow, 2010). According to Greitemeyer and Osswald (2010), large-scale surveys show that 70% of homes with children ages 2 to 17 years have computers and 68% have video game equipment (Woodard & Gridina, 2000). Eighty-seven percent of children play video games regularly (Walsh, Gentile, Gieske, Walsh, & Chasco, 2003). Children ages 2 to 7 years spent an average of 3 to 5 hours a week playing video games (Gentile & Walsh, 2002), while 8^th and 9^th-grade students average 9 hours per week (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004).