72% of today’s US households play
video or computer games, and this number is rising. Gaming is a topic that
often takes a lot of heat, being defended and debated by gamers and adversaries
respectively. The Wall Street Journal shed some light in this morning’s
newspaper on the side of gamer proponents, highlighting multiple benefits of
gaming. Gaming can change the adult
brain, resulting in better multitasking, decision-making, motor skills and even
creativity. “The specific benefits are wide ranging, from improved hand-eye
coordination in surgeons to vision changes that boost night driving ability.” Often
studies surrounding gaming focus on its’ effect on violent behavior and other negative
associations, but it is in fact these violent games that recently showed the strongest
beneficial effect on the brain. They found that “the most adept gamers can make
choices and act on them up to six times a second – four times faster than most people.”
In a world with so much excess information, the ability to ignore irrelevant
information and juggle simultaneous tasks is critical, and a skill that several
studies show that gamers are better at than non-gamers.
Of course with these benefits there
are also proven downfalls. After just a week of electronic gameplay, depressing
brain function activity can result among regions associated with emotional
control. But good or bad, the gaming industry deserves attention, with computer
gaming alone being a $25 billion a year entertainment business. Studies will
continue to expose the benefits and downsides of gaming, especially as
scientists turn the commercial games themselves into laboratories of learning.
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