Body Involvement in Video Gaming as a Support for Physical and Cognitive Learning

Abstract

Despite a steady increase in the social visibility of video games in all spheres of daily life, persistent preconceived ideas about video games reveal a tendency to focus on either their positive or negative values, especially concerning the place of the player’s body. First, this article questions the different degrees of bodily involvement in the practice of video games according to the different types of games and the mechanisms that allow the player to learn the games’ gesture patterns. Then, the objective is to study the effects of video gaming on the physical, psychological, and social dimensions of the player and to identify potential correlations between bodily involvement and health benefit. Indeed, bodily involvement translates into physical engagement, and sometimes motor expertise as required by the game, but also into the mobilization of the player’s cognitive and interactive resources with the video game devices.