Benefits of Playing Video Games

Benefits of Playing Video Games

Video games are part of life for the majority of children and teenagers. In the U.S., 97% of kids spend at least one hour daily playing video games.

Many parents discourage their kids from gaming, and most don’t even allow video consoles in their houses. They believe video games impair kids’ performance at school.

Too many studies and psychological research have unveiled and focused on the detrimental effects of gaming. This has portrayed video games as harmful to children and other gamers. Today, we will discuss the not-so-known benefits of playing video games. 

Improves Cognitive Abilities

Among the most vital positive factors of gaming is the improvement of players’ visuospatial and focusing skills. Visuospatial ability is a person’s aptitude for remembering facts and other things easily and determining connections between them. 

For example, by making sense of objects or a map, you can use your gaming driving skills in your real-life driving experience.

These skills benefit anyone, especially people in diverse fields of study, like exact sciences. Therefore, students and professionals can improve their understanding of these fields by playing video games.

Increases Hand-to-Eye Coordination

A study by the University of Toronto shows that regular gamers learn new sensorimotor skills faster than those who do not. Sensorimotor skills include riding, driving, and typing and require eye and body movement coordination.

These skills are crucial in real life as they enable you to carry out tasks faster and more efficiently.

Improves Multitasking Ability

The most notable impact of video gaming is improved multitasking on the gamer. A person who plays video games regularly performs other functions better and efficiently and can handle multiple tasks simultaneously.

Action-based video games are vital for developing multitasking abilities. As the game keeps the player engaged in multiple tasks at once at a fast pace, with time, the player will better understand how to manage them quicker and better.

Games Can Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

Benefits of Playing Video Games

Multi-level, mission-based, and world puzzle games work like complex puzzles, requiring time before solving them. The outcome of these games depends on the decisions or actions you take during the game.

Learning critical thinking skills and strategizing in fantasy gaming can be transferred to the real world. The American Psychological Association reported that gaming in children boosts their learning skills leading to improved grades. It also improves their health and social skills.

Helps in Overcoming Dyslexia

Attention difficulties are among the critical components of dyslexia. One study found that video games improve reading comprehension and visual-to-audio attention shifting in dyslexic children. The fast-changing gaming environments require sharp focus leading to improved attention skills.

Video Games Inspire Persistence

The only way to win at a video game is by getting the right solutions. If you don’t get them on the first try, you have to repeat them until you get them right, and sometimes you have to repeat them many times. 

The mistakes you learn along the way help you make better decisions as you climb the ladder until you accomplish the mission. 

Some researchers argue that gamers can use gaming experiences to treat their life mistakes as learning opportunities, making them confident as they march toward their goals.

Gaming Slows Down Ageing

Puzzles, memory, problem-solving, and other brain games positively impact older players’ brains. A study showed that a ten-hour gaming exercise improved cognitive functioning in 50-year-old and above participants.

So, if you are a retiree looking for a healthy activity, you need a few hours daily on your game console.

Gaming Increases The Brain’s Grey Matter

Although the primary objective of gaming is to have fun, it is also a way of exercising one’s mind. According to a study by Chinese and Australian researchers, gaming increases the size of one’s grey matter, which is responsible for muscle control.

Grey matter also controls sensory perception skills such as hearing, seeing, speech, memory, and decision formation. Increasing the grey matter in one’s brain means the above abilities are enhanced.

Gaming Helps You Learn Different Languages

On-screen instructions, story narrations, and chats on video games help learn other languages.

What other forms of gaming improve your skills?

Based on numerous research, it turns out that moderate and responsible gambling can help players improve their concentration skills and analytical skills. Luckily, since the demand for gambling games is more present than ever, brand new slot sites are present on the market like never before.

Video gaming is not as harmful as some may believe

Video gaming has numerous benefits for people of all ages if played moderately. 

From improving cognitive abilities, and multi-tasking, increasing the brain’s gray matter, enhancing problem-solving skills, and overcoming dyslexia, to helping learn different languages, gaming does more good than harm.

Nakoa Davis
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