So, many people believe that video games are bad for you, incite violence in children and are making the population dumber and dumber. But actually, video games can be beneficial to your cognitive health! Here are 5 reasons why video games are good for your brain!
1) It can increase the size of the brain regions that are responsible for spatial orientation, memory formation, and fine motor skills. In a study conducted by Max Planck Institute for Human Development, playing Super Mario 64 30 minutes a day for two months will increase the grey matter in the regions that control the actions listed above, compared to the people that don’t play the game. Going back to the classics is a great thing to do, regardless of if you play it to have fun, or get smarter.
2) Studies show that video games can make children with dyslexia read better. “We demonstrate that only 12 hours of playing action video games drastically improved the reading abilities of children with dyslexia.” The study gathered data on how well students could read with dyslexia and found that students who played only action video games had improved accuracy in reading, more than 1 year of spontaneous reading development practices. Learning how to read has never been more fun.
3) Playing video games enhances cognitive control in elderly people. By playing cognitive video games that stimulate the brain, studies show that you can delay the rate of cognitive decay by seven years! Older adults benefit from playing video games because it also increases control of the finer movements that they lose later in their years. Grandmas and grandpas rejoice!
4) Your vision gets better if you play video games! In a study conducted by Nature Neuroscience it was found that playing video games with high levels of action, such as first-person-shooters, “increases a player’s real-world vision.” The University of Rochester discovered that action gamers that were very good at their game became 58% better at perceiving fine differences in contrast. The study also found that action video games taught the visual cortex to decrease visual crowding and increase visual attention! This means that your vision actually gets better when you play video games. Tell that to Mom next time she tells you to, “stop playing those darned games!”
5) Surgeons who play video games are less likely to make mistakes than those that don’t play. Thirty-three surgeons participated in this study and found out that surgeons who played video games for more than three hours a week in the past had a 42% better score on the test administered than non-video game playing surgeons. I know that next time I have to go get a surgery, I’ll get it done by the surgeon who played video games as a child.
By Samad Virani
1) It can increase the size of the brain regions that are responsible for spatial orientation, memory formation, and fine motor skills. In a study conducted by Max Planck Institute for Human Development, playing Super Mario 64 30 minutes a day for two months will increase the grey matter in the regions that control the actions listed above, compared to the people that don’t play the game. Going back to the classics is a great thing to do, regardless of if you play it to have fun, or get smarter.
2) Studies show that video games can make children with dyslexia read better. “We demonstrate that only 12 hours of playing action video games drastically improved the reading abilities of children with dyslexia.” The study gathered data on how well students could read with dyslexia and found that students who played only action video games had improved accuracy in reading, more than 1 year of spontaneous reading development practices. Learning how to read has never been more fun.
3) Playing video games enhances cognitive control in elderly people. By playing cognitive video games that stimulate the brain, studies show that you can delay the rate of cognitive decay by seven years! Older adults benefit from playing video games because it also increases control of the finer movements that they lose later in their years. Grandmas and grandpas rejoice!
4) Your vision gets better if you play video games! In a study conducted by Nature Neuroscience it was found that playing video games with high levels of action, such as first-person-shooters, “increases a player’s real-world vision.” The University of Rochester discovered that action gamers that were very good at their game became 58% better at perceiving fine differences in contrast. The study also found that action video games taught the visual cortex to decrease visual crowding and increase visual attention! This means that your vision actually gets better when you play video games. Tell that to Mom next time she tells you to, “stop playing those darned games!”
5) Surgeons who play video games are less likely to make mistakes than those that don’t play. Thirty-three surgeons participated in this study and found out that surgeons who played video games for more than three hours a week in the past had a 42% better score on the test administered than non-video game playing surgeons. I know that next time I have to go get a surgery, I’ll get it done by the surgeon who played video games as a child.
By Samad Virani