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No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician. I believe they can keep your brain in a good shape, but not all games.
For example First Person Shooters, might improve your perception, fast decisions. Team leaders can develop tactical skills and squad management. Strategy Games or RPG Games can improve your critical thinking, develop strategies or management skills and decision making. You can learn a lot new thinks from games and keep your brain entertained, challenged. Many of the things that you learn from them can be applied in reality like in the army, business and so on.
I definitely believe that playing some computer games can keep your mind healthy and young. When we quit using our mind it ages and we need to continually be doing different things to keep it active. Working our body out while not focusing on our minds, is a huge mistake. Blessings, Victoria. I used to play more than 5 hrs a day that keeps me active to finish all other work without any boringness.
The diet of an organism is what it eats, which is largely determined by the perceived palatability of foods. Dietitians are health professionals who specialize in human nutrition, meal planning, economics, and preparation. Really so nice post. When I read this post I find many Useful Information. I re-comment it to my fellow learner. If you keep some stupid game for 20 hours daily that will make you stupid as well. Surely it has to depend on the type of game being played?
I mean some things we do without computers to challenge our brains and keep them active could and has been quite easily integrated into a game. Yes, I agree that computer games really improve brain functions But some game can be harmful for brain. Currently, Most people play game using tablet and on big screen television. Video games has some benefits and disadvantages too. Yes it is beneficial to your brain to stimulate it but fatal if too much. This is the biggest problem South Korea is facing right now where video games are now become fatal to players.
A recent news is a man died for playing StarCraft for 50 hours straight. Without limitations plus addiction then video games can be considered fatal for all players. In my Own Experience the computer games can increase your skill in real life, but it will depends on what games do you play.
Very interesting study. I totally agree with what Patrick Carter said. I think computer games do refresh our brain cells too. I work with kids, and I know what I say. I think it depends on what kind of games that we played, some games can train our brain to think and creative, but some others will only makes addicted to keep playing on and on.
Interesting, it would make sense because most games are made to be logical, hence figuring out puzzles or breaking milestones.
I would think in order to boost memory games would have to be created with that intention in mind. I definitely think computer games keep the mind focused. If I need new ideas for my business, I seriously result to tetris and other mind absorbing games because it puts the focus back.
Are there any more recent studies? I know that this has been a focus for a lot of recent research and is quote old in terms of a report. Keep your brain fit? I would think video games would do the total opposite. I can see it in my kids who love to play on the computer, their reactions to changes while at task on is quick and also eye to hand coordination is exceptional. I think computer games do refresh our brain cells. But too much of anything is not good. Patrick Carter. I have been a gamer since the dawn of the commodore, atari and a host of now alien systems.
I remember the day before, during and after pacman. See computer gaming does help the brain. Now I own a program that the cover looks like a game. Learning depends so much with the learner and it carries it through also the skills of the persons. I think, on the contrary, pc games can deteriorate our brane storm, since most often we have to simulate a situation in which it is not gonna happen in reality. Very interesting topic!
And i think natural treatment is necessary too to keep our brain fit. I feel that playing video games helps hand eye coordination and definitely makes you think faster. Also everything in moderation helps. Playing video games for 10 hours a day is not healthy. Moderation is the key in life. The following article could be of help.
This interest gained momentum after Dr. For instance, Joseph Chisholm, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Canada, found action video game players were better able to identify distraction and quicker to return their focus to the main task.
Bavelier wanted to pin down more precisely why action gamers appear to have better focus. She placed electroencephalography EEG headsets on gamers and non-gamers, and asked them to watch a screen on which three rapid sequences of letters appeared simultaneously.
They were told to focus on one of the three and press a button when numbers appeared, while ignoring distractions. The EEG headsets tracked electrical signals in the brain, allowing Bevelier to measure how much attention the volunteer was allocating to the task and to the distraction. Gamers and non-gamers were equally able to focus their attention on the target sequences, but the gamers performed better and had quicker reaction times.
Her team has also shown that action gamers may have stronger vision. They can better distinguish between different shades of grey, called contrast sensitivity, which is important when driving at night and in other poor visibility situations, and is affected by ageing and undermined in those with amblyopia, or "lazy eye".
They also have better visual acuity, which is what opticians measure when they ask you to read lines of ever smaller letters from a chart at distance. Bavelier found action video games could also improve the vision of non-gamers. She asked groups of non-gamers to play 50 hours of Unreal Tournament or Call of Duty 2, or to play the slower, non-action game, The Sims 2, over nine weeks. By the end of the study, the contrast sensitivity of those who trained on action games had improved more than those who played The Sims 2, and the benefits lasted for at least five months.
Other researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that adults with lazy eyes who spent 40 hours playing video games with their good eyes patched could improve their ability to distinguish smaller letters on such charts.
The higher scores were not seen in those asked to do other visually demanding tasks such as reading and knitting with their good eyes patched. Researchers know from years of studies that when men and women are given the task of rotating two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects in their heads, men tend to perform better than women. When Jing Feng, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, in Canada, and colleagues asked a small group of non-gamers to play either Medal of Honor or the 3D puzzle game Ballance for 10 hours over several sessions, they were surprised by the results.
They found the action game training boosted the scores of the female participants more than it did the males, and the effect of the training was still apparent five months later. So if playing video games can lead to beneficial brain changes, does this positively affect behaviour? Gentile set out to find out by testing the effects of playing "pro-social" games on young people in the US, Singapore and Japan.
The children and teenagers in each study were more likely to help others in real life or in simulated tasks if they played the games where the characters co-operated, helped one another, or pitched in to clean a virtual neighbourhood. What we now know is that across cultures and age groups computer games can either cause problems or be beneficial, depending on its content. He asked 46 German students to play Lemmings, in which players must protect groups of rodents from dangers, or Tetris.
They were then asked to complete three unfinished stories that included one about a driver and a cyclist who narrowly avoid a collision; another about two friends, one of whom is unapologetic despite being always late; and a third one about a customer speaking to a restaurant manager after waiting an hour to be served and having food spilt on him. With their subjects, scientists saw increases in three major areas of the brain: the prefrontal cortex, the right hippocampus, and the cerebellum.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain responsible for decision making, social behavior, personality, and cognitive planning. It makes sense, then, that this area of the brain is affected by playing Super Mario 6 4, a game which requires gamers to plan ahead and contemplate how to use and interact with objects in a virtual world.
The right hippocampus plays an important role in how we process and consolidate information, including short-term and long-term memory. As you might imagine, the results were more pronounced in those gamers who truly invested themselves in the gaming, and had a strong desire to beat the game or figure out the difficulties of a certain level. Read more for a list of video game genres. So if an action game like Super Mario 64 signals positive benefits for players, games built specifically to train, test, and challenge the brain must be beneficial too, right?
For instance, such claims tout that, for just a few minutes a day, you can train your brain using video games—and in some cases, that these games will make you smarter.
Because really, anything that engages your brain and makes you think is good practice. There are a ton of brain games online and more available for your gaming platform of choice. Other brain game benefits include helping players get better with repeated tasks, and they also provide mental stimulation—something that doctors highly recommend, especially for older adults and the elderly.
Games can also teach problem solving and strategy, making them valuable tools for kids and teens. View our entire list of best video games for kids. In SimCity , players lay out and plan a city, and must think ahead to consider how something like the tax rate may help or hurt the growth of their city, or how street planning and certain zones may impact growth. The game also teaches resource management and planning on a basic level, and it does a nice job of explaining these concepts to younger gamers.
Learning and developing these types of strategies can be directly applicable to life as well. Last, an indirect benefit is the fact that several video games are based on real historical events, and can encourage kids to find out more about the world that came before them through research and reading.
How else are video games good for you? Exergames like the Wii Fit have experienced a huge resurgence in the last ten years thanks to companies like Nintendo and Konami. And for kids and parents with busy schedules, such games provide a quick way to get in 30 minutes of activity and exercise.
Exergames get players up and moving, helping with circulation, joint flexibility, coordination, and balance.
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