Benefits of Gaming
Video Games: 3 Amazing Health and Body Benefits
Video gamers, your mother was wrong. Video games aren’t bad for you. In reality, they improve your life. Despite the conventional wisdom about the supposed link between violence and video games (hint: there are none), many academic research information indicate that gaming technology has many psychological, and even physical advantages. Taken together, it would seem that video games actually make you a better human being.
- ‘Mario’ acts on your brain like steroids
To better understand how gaming technology affect the brain development, German research team published a study infromation. They asked 23 adults aged 25 years on average to play “Super Mario 64” for 30 minutes a day for two months. A control group did not play video games at all.
MRI scans of their brains showed that the group of players had seen their grey cells grow in the right hippocampus, the right prefrontal cortex and cerebellum – the areas of the brain responsible for spatial navigation, memory development, organization and hand motor skills.
“While previous studies had shown differences in brain structure among video game players, the current study reveals a link between playing video games and an increase in brain volume,” says Simone Kühn, who led the study. “This proves that certain specific areas of the brain can be exercised through video games.”
Kühn and colleagues concluded that video games could potentially be used as therapy for patients with mental disorders causing reduction or alteration of certain parts of the brain. These disorders include schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer’s disease.
- Maybe you’ll get smarter with Starcraft.
Last August, British researchers found that some video games, especially strategy games like “Starcraft”, can increase the “flexibility of the brain”, which scientists describe as “the cornerstone of human intelligence.”
The study, conducted by the Queen Mary University of London and by University College London, is based on psychological tests conducted before and after 72 volunteers played “Starcraft” or the game of life simulation “Sims” for 40 hours, spread over six to eight weeks. According to the study, in psychological tests, participants who played “Starcraft” completed cognitive flexibility tasks more quickly and accurately.
“Now we need to understand what exactly causes these changes, and whether these cognitive lashes are permanent or decrease over time,” said Brian Glass, a researcher in this study, in August. “Once we understand, it will be possible to develop clinical interventions for, for example, symptoms related to attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or head trauma.”
- Video games could slow down aging
According to a research information conducted this year by the University of Technology and Development in Iowa, playing educational games for two hours a week would be enough to slow down the degree of mental decline associated with natural aging.
A study of 681 individuals aged 50 and over found that playing 10 hours of certain video games could delay the natural decline of different cognitive skills by as much as seven years.
For five to eight weeks, a group of seniors practiced computer crossword puzzles while three other groups played a computer game called ” Road Tour.””This game consisted of finding photos of vehicles while remembering where a particular sign was placed, with more and more traps as the player progressed. The experience had to reflect the difficulty of older drivers to manage a wealth of information at a crossing.
“Whether it’s a specific community-driven game like ‘World Of Warcraft,’ they’re complex in cognitive terms and require mental energy and abilities to play, ” says Jason Allaire, a professor in the psychology department at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who did not participate in the study. “Every time you do something that requires mental energy, you exercise your abilities – it’s just like when you exercise your muscles, you become stronger.