Do not let those around you, be they parents, children, or your boss, grumble and not let you devote another hour or two to liberating London from the Templars, fight hard-to-predict, but already familiar alien enemies, or take part in skirmishes on the streets of an unknown city after the apocalypse. It’s good for your health! This is how an avid gamer should look at things.
Certain stereotypes about video games have been around for as long as the video games themselves. We must destroy these stereotypes. And while video games today are more like interactive cinema and are very different from games of the eighties and nineties, people who are not interested in them continue to consider them a waste of time. From the point of view of these people, a video game is something for children or for individuals who stubbornly refuse to grow up.
However, from year to year, the video game industry is expanding and developing. Children grow up and play them on computers, tablets, and smartphones, not just consoles. Educational video games have appeared. As a result, more and more people are starting to talk about the benefits of video games, which were previously difficult to imagine. Games today are an integral part of our culture, and there is no reason to believe that they will lose their relevance in the foreseeable future.
The good news is that games can be good for your health. This statement is probably completely at variance with what parents tell their children. So now you will be able to deflect an attack when someone says that you are playing too much or something like “these games make you dumb.” There are at least five arguments in favor of this.
Ability to make decisions improves
We have mentioned this already, but video games do really improve your decision-making ability. In many games, a person is faced with moral dilemmas that force us to weigh the pros and cons and make a decision that affects the further course of the game. Some games, such as strategy games, cannot be played successfully without good critical thinking. Even a first-person shooter requires this skill, and you also need to be a good strategist because a shooter is not only about aiming and shooting. Research shows that skills learned in games can be very useful in real life, such as in school.
You become smarter and remember information better
It was found that video games can positively impact memory, the ability to solve diverse problems, build algorithms, and improve mindfulness and other cognitive abilities of the brain.
Socialization
One of the main stereotypes about video games is that they allegedly make gamers introverted and tear them away from reality. Parents see their children sitting in front of the monitor for days and not seeing peers in life.
In reality, games, on the contrary, contribute to the socialization of people. In 2015, Pew Research Center published a study on how teenagers-gamers aged 13-17 are socialized using video games. It turned out that 36% of boys made friends by meeting them thanks to video games, more than half of them during online games. Among female gamers, only 13% made acquaintances in online games, but there are fewer female gamers than boys.
Movement coordination improve
Video games have a positive effect on hand-eye coordination. This influence is so great that games are used in training surgeons, in particular when practicing accuracy of movements and skills in performing tasks in a very limited space. It was already known that video games affect motor skills, but recent research is shedding light on the nature of this phenomenon. Games that require fast action, such as first-person shooters, have been shown to improve motor skills and quick decision-making. That is why you can react from 30 meters to enemy soldiers, in front, on the sides, and behind.
A positive effect on cognitive processes
We have already said that games improve memory, but they also affect cognitive processes. This means that by playing your favorite game, you develop attention, perseverance, and the ability to perceive the environment, all thanks to critical thinking and decision-making during the game. This finding is significant because it turns out that video games can help treat people with cognitive problems that may appear with age, such as Alzheimer’s and mental decline.
Curiosity and broadening horizons
The game is discordant. There are those that will take thousands of hours of your life and give nothing in return, as most conditionally free in Steam do. In 90% of cases, you have to pay to upgrade the rating there, and that’s all.
And there are also those that can captivate and motivate you to study any science or force you to go to the country where the action takes place.
The thesis is best proved by the Assassin’s Creed franchise. The second part revolutionized the implementation of an open world. Legendary buildings were drawn in detail. And while playing the game, you studied Florence and Venice. Now imagine that after the game, you really ended up in one of these cities. The network compares historical places and buildings in the game and in reality for almost every part of the game.