Why games are good for you

You might challenge your mom, dad — or even your grandma — to swing the bat in a game of baseball or try out some fancy moves in one of the dancing games. Could your grandma be a dancing queen? Time to find out! Reviewed by: Larissa Hirsch, MD. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size.

The study showed a correlation between how frequently the participants were playing games and how much improvement they saw — the more strategy games they played, the more their problem-solving skills and school grades improved. These problems can involve both memorization and analysis to solve them, as well as a little creativity.

Obstacles in video games are often very open-ended without a lot of instruction, meaning players must experiment with trial and error. When your attempt to solve a problem in a video game fails the first time — or the first 10 times — you are also learning how to be resilient and persistent when facing challenges in real life. Video games can also be a great way to relax and unwind. Video games that are complex and deeply immersive can also be therapeutic. When the player is fully absorbed in a digital world, they do not have time to worry about work or bills.

Video games can be a perfect way to give your brain a break from the anxiety and stress of everyday life. The social benefits of video games have been widely debated, as some people argue video games lead to poor social skills or isolation. However, while excessive video game play may have negative social impacts, moderate video game play can improve social skills and reduce anxiety. When players are able to take on fictional personas in a virtual world, they are free to experiment with social interactions, which then teaches them what good social behavior is.

Those who experience anxiety in social situations may feel more comfortable practicing social interactions in video games, without the real-life consequences. They can then be more confident when interacting with others in the real world. Video games also provide a thriving social setting for gamers. More than 70 percent of people who play video games play with a friend. Plus, the video game community is massive, and with modern technology, gamers can play with millions of other people worldwide at any time.

Participating in virtual worlds with other players encourages communication and cooperation that carries over to real-life interactions. While this positive effect of video games is not technically about your brain, it is still a significant benefit to mention.

With the emergence of many fitness video games, it is easy to get a workout while playing an exciting video game. These video games are good for your health and can be a great way to break a sweat without having to head to the gym. The most powerful benefit of these exercise-focused video games may be that they can change the way a person thinks about being active. These fitness games make exercising fun and provide an easy way to get in shape.

As your brain ages, your memory, focus and ability to multitask all begin to decline. While young people are often able to juggle several different mental demands at once, older people may find it difficult to stay focused even on a single task. However, there are many ways to keep your brain young , such as by doing puzzles, eating healthy, exercising and even playing video games.

Exergames get players up and moving, helping with circulation, joint flexibility, coordination, and balance. And thanks to technology, many of these same games track your progress, through your number of repetitions, and even help you set goals to keep you motivated—all without the commitment of a gym membership. From another physical perspective, video games can improve your eyesight.

A study by the University of Rochester proved video games improve vision by making gamers more responsive to different shades of color. The same study, funded by the National Eye Institute and the Office of Naval Research, found that players of action games - like first-person shooters - had better perception of color contrast. Additionally, video games have been proven to improve fine-motor skills in preschoolers, and a study published in the medical journal PLOS One found that surgeons who played video games - more specifically, the Nintendo Wii - became better surgeons!

By playing games, they improved their hand-eye coordination and precise muscle movement—both essential skills for their practice. So yes, video games are actually good for you on many levels. Of course, we must add, like anything, to maintain such benefits, games should be consumed in moderation. Staying up all night, every single night, to fight off zombies? Maybe not the best thing for your health. Learning the skills needed to create your own game can give kids and teens a leg up when it comes to securing dream internships and lucrative jobs down the road.

With a program like iD Tech, students enter their sessions as pure video game players, and end their week with the knowledge and skills required to become video game creators. Learn more about iD Tech summer video game summer camps and online learning for kids and teens. Vince has worked as a camp director for iD Tech. Vision is also improved, particularly telling the difference between shades of grey. This is useful for driving at night, piloting a plane or reading X-rays.

Games also benefit a variety of brain functions, including decision-making. People who play action-based games make decisions 25 per cent faster than others and are no less accurate, according to one study. It was also found that the best gamers can make choices and act on them up to six times a second, four times faster than most people. In another study by researchers from the University of Rochester in New York, experienced gamers were shown to be able to pay attention to more than six things at once without getting confused, compared with the four that most people can normally keep in mind.

Additionally, video games can also reduce gender differences. Scientists have found that women who play games are better able to mentally manipulate 3D objects. There is also evidence that gaming can help with psychological problems. At the University of Auckland in New Zealand, researchers asked 94 young people diagnosed with depression to play a 3D fantasy game called SPARX and in many cases, the game reduced symptoms of depression more than conventional treatment.

Another research team at Oxford University found that playing Tetris shortly after exposure to something very upsetting — in the experiment, a film of traumatic scenes of injury and death was used — can actually prevent people having disturbing flashbacks. The effects are not always so positive, however. Indiana University researchers carried out brain scans on young men and found evidence that violent games can alter brain function after as little as a week of play, affecting regions in the brain associated with emotional control and causing more aggressive behaviour in the player.

But Daphne Bavelier, one of the most experienced researchers in the field, says that the violent action games that often worry parents most may actually have the strongest beneficial effect on the brain. In the future, we may see many treatments for physical and neurological problems which incorporate the playing of video games.

When I was a child I played video games a lot. I liked strategy games more than others. Now I realized that video games influenced me both positively and negatively.

The positive influence consists of making me more able to make decisions fast and correct. Strategic video games suggest a mass of different and various problems for a player. Actually, it developed my mental abilities. However, there is also the negative result of this experience. All video games are very colorful and interesting. At first, you just prefer the game to reality. But you must live at real world, not in the game. After that, you realize that you can integrate your favorite game into reality.

Reality becomes as a game. Definitely, you find it wonderful and, as I have already said, starts to solve problems operatively, but you associate real objects and situations with what happened in the game, and other people do not understand you.

Immersion in the virtual world helps me to distract from real problems. In this case, you get pleasure not only from the gameplay, but also from the visuals. Unfortunately, computer games are too time-consuming. During my school years, it was difficult for me to combine studies and computer games, so over time I began to play less often. But to be honest, I still tickled pink to learn about new upcoming games.