6 Benefits of Video Games

Do you know the Real Benefits of Playing Video Games?

We all know that playing video games is the most common and most popular hobby in the modern world. There is no such age limit to playing video games. These days many people started playing video games because of many reasons. Most of us think of video games as a waste of time. In the past years of my life, I have believed that video games are a total waste of time because they are unproductive. And I thought that there were no benefits to playing video games. So the reason behind this research because I want to feel better about all the time that I have wasted and going to waste on playing video games. So are video games beneficial? Yes, there are some benefits to playing video games too. Many people don't think about the enjoyment of this hobby. They play video games addicted and they say it is a time-wasting hobby. To do anything, first, we must stay happy because we can't achieve anything without happiness in life. All we are going to achieve is depression because of more stress. We must enjoy at least a small amount of time in daily life. And I don't say that there are no disadvantages to playing video games. There are some disadvantages to playing video games too. Anything in this world is harmful when you are overly addicted to it. So it goes for video games also. It can get worst if you get addicted to it. So in this post, I'm going to show you the positive aspects of playing video games. I'm going to show you the benefits of playing video games and how they can make our life happier, healthier, and more productive.  

1. Video games improve our problem-solving ability. 

So are there any video games cognitive benefits? Yes, there is a decent amount of evidence that video games improve problem-solving skills. Studies show that people who play more strategic video games have better problem-solving abilities than those who don't play strategic video games. So it's a very fair benefit because strategic games are about solving problems. We use our brains to solve problems in the game and win the game. After some time playing strategic video games, we will solve in-game issues in a short period of time. We can solve problems in a bit of time. So if you are a student this will be more beneficial for you to improve your grades.

2. Video games improve our memory and our visual navigational skills.

There is some evidence behind this. In 2015, the University of California did some studies about this. They compared people who play video games versus people who don't play video games. They found that the people who played 3D games like Super Mario 64, performed better at memory tasks than the people who played 2D video games like angry birds and people who didn't play any video games at all. And they took the non-gamers and split them into three groups. they put one group to play a 3D game like super Mario 64 and they put another group to play a 2D game like angry birds. And the third group didn't play any video games. They discovered that people who played 3D games for half an hour a day had improved performances in certain memory tasks. 

3. Games can help reduce cognitive decline.

We all know that video games require some level of cognitive performance. When we play video games, we use our brains to make quick decisions, guess some things fast, and set up strategies to win the game. So when we do these sorts of actions in video games it helps to do these activities in real life too. So when we do these activities our brain has to work. So it makes sense that if you play video games it can help you to reduce cognitive decline. But the interesting thing is there is some evidence for this also. There is evidence that video games can help reduce cognitive decline that happens naturally as we age. A study from the University of Montreal is very interesting. They split up adults between the ages of 55 and 75 into three groups, one group was trained in video games like Super Mario 64. The second set had piano lessons and the third group didn't have anything. They found that an increase in the gray matter within the hippocampus was significant only in the gaming group and they found that the control group displayed significant gray matter loss. This is very interesting because the gray matter and the hippocampus act as a marker for some neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and if it deteriorates over time you are more likely to develop these neurological disorders. So that was on the anti-aging front. So this study shows that when we get cognitive decline naturally as we age, playing video games can help us to reduce these types of disorders.

4. Gamers are better at allocating attention.

This is another benefit that we earn from playing video games consistently. There is evidence from the University of Rochester that those who play video games tend to do better at allocating their attention. Dr.Daphne Bevelier did some research about this. She ran a functional MRI study into the mechanisms that attentional allocation. She found that the three areas of the brain associated with the attention parietal lobe, the frontal lobe, and the anterior cingulate cortex all had more efficient performances in people who play video games than people who didn't. They also did some neural stimulations. They found that in people who played video games, their brains were better at allocating visual and auditory stimuli to be able to make decisions more effectively and efficiently than people who didn't play video games.

5. Video games may help with anxiety and depression.

Many young people suffer from depression and anxiety because of loneliness, don't have many friends, don't have someone to talk to, stress from studies, neglect from family, and many reasons. So playing video games could be an answer to all these problems. You don't want to someone hang up on you because you can play video games lonely and spend time enjoying yourself. The main reason for depression is loneliness. So by playing video games, you can get through depression. A study from New Zealand used a specially designed game called sparks to help teenagers who are dealing with depression and they found that remission rates were significantly higher in the arm of the spark 43.7% than in the treatment-as-usual arm 26.7%. So what they found was that the teenagers who had the video game were significantly more likely to have their depression cured or in remission than the teenagers who just had therapy as usual. Now obviously this was a specific video game designed to treat depression. But this study gives us some kind of evidence that maybe there is some scope for video games to actually help reduce depression and anxiety.

6. Video games may help to increase social skills.

A study from the UK in 2017 shows some evidence for this. They took 708 people who played massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft and Fortnite. And they found various psychosocial benefits in playing these sorts of games. It is fair because when we play multiplayer online games. We talk with strangers who we don't know about. So then our speaking skills level up. And imagine if we had a zoom call, we have to think about topics to talk about. But when playing a video game together, we don't want to search for topics to talk about. We play games interestingly and we talk about the game interestingly. So this can help us to build up our social skills. And meeting many people through online video games, we can make new friends around your city and the world. This can be more beneficial to your life, to your career and to live healthier and happier.

So these are the 6 benefits of video games. I'm not saying there are no disadvantages to playing video games. Video games can be harmful if you are addicted to them. In this world, anything is harmful when we are addicted to it. Otherwise, video games are not harmful to you. So have a specific time period in your day to enjoy playing video games. So that's it. I  hope this article gave some information about the benefits of playing video games. 

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