Introduction
Video games have a bad reputation. They are often called a mindless pastime that makes us inert, aggressive and fat. Is that true? No. Only the lazy do not make fun of the fat sides of gamers and do not tell them about the harm of video games directly to their red eyes. This is not entirely fair and not always objective. Let’s restore the balance and find out what is useful in gaming impartial science.
Shooter fans make accurate decisions faster
Researchers at the University of Rochester have conducted a series of studies and concluded that video games make gamers more sensitive to what’s going on around them. And it’s not limited to virtual worlds. A wide range of general skills that can be useful in everyday life are improved, such as multitasking, reading small print, recognizing acquaintances in a crowd, or navigating a city.
Several dozen people aged 18–25, far removed from the world of video entertainment, took part in one of the experiments . Some played shooters, and others played a family simulator. After which the subjects underwent a series of special tests for decision-making speed. The first group completed the task 25% faster than the second without compromising accuracy.
The authors shed light on the nature of this phenomenon. People make decisions based on probabilities that they constantly calculate in their heads. The brain accumulates bits of visual and auditory information and eventually assembles a sufficient picture from them that is perceived as an accurate solution. The shooter fans reached the necessary threshold faster because their visual and auditory analyzers were more efficient.
Gamers have better control over their dreams
Jayne Gackenbach, a renowned psychologist at Canada’s Grant MacEwan University, compares video games to dreams, as both are alternative realities. And although dreams are biologically generated in the human mind, and video games are technologically generated by computers and gaming consoles, the parallels are still apt.
Based on her research, Jane claims that gamers are more likely to encounter such an unusual phenomenon as lucid dreaming. In this state, a person understands that he is dreaming and can control its content to some extent. Scientists directly link this to the experience gained by gamers in virtual reality.
Jane expands on this theme and describes a well-known theory that dreams mimic threatening situations in everyday life. Nightmares help the body hone its defensive skills in a safe environment, so that it can later apply them in a real-life situation if necessary. Gackenbach studied the dream reports of 35 men and 63 women and found that gamers were more likely to perceive the threat looming in their dreams, and sometimes turned the situation around and fought the source of danger. In other words, they turned a nightmare scenario into a fun raid.
Games make people wiser and kinder
Strategy games can influence the humanity and behavioral thinking of gamers in real life. This is the opinion of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose employees created Quanary, an educational game for high school students that raises the fundamental question of a child’s ethical development.
During the game, you manage a space colony and resolve dilemmas that arise between settlers cut off from Earth. Your goal is to understand the details of the dispute by talking to all participants in the conflict. You have to separate facts from subjective opinions, find common ground and offer your own way out of the situation. Moreover, there are no right or wrong decisions in the game. Each side has its own piece of truth, and you must understand the position of each settler.
Video games improve eyesight
High-speed first-person games improve a player’s vision. It was previously believed that the ability to recognize small differences in shades of gray cannot be trained. But research by Daphne Bavelier suggests otherwise.
Fast games use the full power of the human visual system, the brain adapts to new conditions, and the skills are transferred to life outside the monitor. Moreover, the positive effect remains even two years after “quitting”. Daphne believes that video games can be useful in the treatment of amblyopia, characterized by deterioration of the transfer of a visual image to the brain.
Video games improve cognitive abilities
This is evidenced by the results of an experiment conducted at the University of California. A group of neuroscientists led by Adam Gazzaley developed NeuroRacer, a seemingly simple racing arcade game in which the player controls the car with his left hand and reacts to (or ignores) emerging road signs with his right.
A group of people aged 60 to 85 played it for six months, 12 hours a month. Afterwards, scientists tested a number of mental abilities of the subjects.
It turned out that the training was not in vain: the volunteer gamers were better at multitasking. This is quite logical. More unexpectedly, the elderly people began to remember information better and maintain attention. Moreover, the effect persisted for several months after the experiments were completed.
The findings are supported by electroencephalogram data. During training, low-frequency theta waves associated with attention increased in the brains of the people. Dr. Ghazzali notes that activity in the prefrontal cortex of the elderly became similar to that of the prefrontal cortex of younger people.