Throughout these past few weeks we have discussed a few things, but the topic I thought was most interesting was video games and the health benefits, that subtlety come along with the entertaining hobby.
“Decades of valuable research on the effects of violent video games on children’s and adolescents’ aggressive behavior already exists, and this is indeed an important body of work to consider. However, we argue that in order to understand the impact of video games on children’s and adolescents’ development, a more balanced perspective is needed, one that considers not only the possible negative effects but also the benefits of playing these games. ” ( Lobel, 2013 )
4 main reasons that video games are good for your health
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Cognitive Benefits
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Motivation & Confidence
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Controlled Emotion
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Social
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This article explains in better detail, this is a quick summary
Cognitive benefits are; “faster and more accurate attention allocation, higher spatial resolution in visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities.”
Motivation & Confidence; “The idea here is that through persistent engagement, young people develop a sense of identity, “beliefs about their intelligence and abilities,” that can have long-term impact on their proclivity for success.”
Controlled Emotions; “By creating realistic enough simulations that elicit strong emotional responses (both positive and negative), commercial games provide players with an opportunity to try and regulate their ” emotions
Social Benefits; “Contrary to stereotypes, the average gamer is not a socially isolated, inept nerd.” So many of today’s games are multiplayer games that require interacting with other players. According to this paper, “over 70% of gamers play their games with a friend, either cooperatively or competitively.”
I found the social concept to be the most interesting, because normally when you think of a gamer you think of isolation in a room, but as this article points out most of people play with friends or online strangers, which leads to making friends. I know I myself only play with friends, I find it makes it more enjoyable.
The Video above talks about 5 reason some similar and some different than what is mentioned in the article.
This was interesting to me, because like most I too play the occasional video game and honestly didn’t even consider it being a factor to my health and certainly not a positive factor, but hey guess you learn something new everyday.
Oswego HPW Health & Technology 