5 Reason Why Video games Are Good For You

Video games: they're addictive, they make kids fat and they turn us all into trained murderers. Or, at least, that’s what we’re often told. But what of the positive effects of video games? Surely there must be some?

Yep, there are. Plenty, in fact.

They Can Improve Motor Skills

Anybody who’s spent much time with pre-schoolers can tell you the only thing they’re much good at catching is conjunctivitis and about the only thing they can throw is spaghetti. On the floor.

In July this year, however, health researchers at Australia’s Deakin University found tikes who play interactive video games, such as those available on Wii for instance, have better motor skills.

The results of the study showed that object control motor skills (such as kicking, catching, and throwing a ball), were better in the children who played interactive games.

“This study was not designed to assess whether interactive gaming can actually develop children’s movement skills, but the results are still quite interesting and point to a need to further explore a possible connection,” said Dr. Lisa Barnett, lead researcher on the study.

“It could be that these children have higher object control skills because they are playing interactive games that may help to develop these types of skills (for example, the under hand roll through playing the bowling game on the Wii). Playing interactive electronic games may also help eye-hand coordination.”

Thanks, Jerry Rice and Nitus' Dog Football!

Barnett did concede it may be that children who already have higher object control skills are more attracted to interactive electronic games more, although adults who play video games have also been observed to have better motor skills than non-gamers.

A study published in 2007 by Iowa State University psychologist Douglas Gentile and Dr. James Rosser, head of minimally invasive surgery at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, compared laparoscopic surgeons who play video games with those who do not.

In laparoscopic procedures, surgeons use small incisions and work with tiny video cameras and thin surgical tools. Even after taking into account differences in age, years of medical training and the number of past laparoscopic surgeries performed the study found that surgeons who played video games were 27 per cent faster and made 37 per cent fewer errors than those who didn't.

“The single best predictor of their skills is how much they had played video games in the past and how much they played now,” said Gentile. “Those were better predictors of surgical skills than years of training and number of surgeries performed.”

“So the first question you might ask your surgeon is how many of these (surgeries) have you done, and the second question is, ‘Are you a gamer?’”

“Let’s get this appendix out; these noobs aren’t going to teabag themselves!”

They Can Relieve Pain

According to a study unveiled in 2010 by the American Pain Society, video games and virtual reality experiences can be as helpful as pain relievers in children and adults.

The study showed that, when immersed in a virtual environment, participants who were undergoing serious procedures like chemotherapy reported “significantly less stress and trepidation”. For burn wound care? Patients' pain ratings decreased by 30 to 50 per cent.

What they were playing wasn't specified. It probably wasn't this.

“Virtual reality produces a modulating effect that is endogenous, so the analgesic influence is not simply a result of distraction but may also impact how the brain responds to painful stimuli,” said Jeffrey I. Gold, director of the Paediatric Pain Management Clinic at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. “The focus is drawn to the game not the pain or the medical procedure, while the virtual reality experience engages visual and other senses.”

Research released just days ago by Keele University in the UK has come to a similar conclusion, although this study found volunteers had a better tolerance for pain after playing a violent video game.

Participants played both a violent shooter and a non-violent golf game on separate occasions for 10 minutes and then placed one of their hands in ice-cold water to test their reaction to pain. On average, participants were able to keep their hands in the ice water for 65 per cent longer after playing the violent game. The Keele team suggests the increased pain tolerance and heart rate can be attributed to the body’s natural ‘fight or flight’ response to stress which can inhibit the body's sensitivity to pain.

The study was prompted following research out of Keele showing that swearing increases people’s tolerance for pain. So we should all curse more.

And demand more violent golf games.

They Can Improve Eyesight

There are two things parents around the world tend to tell their kids that they’ll go blind doing too often, and only one of them is masturbating.

The other is playing video games.

Sometimes, however, parents can be full of crap.

Why are there 46 million results for this search?

The next time somebody yanks your TV power cord out of the wall to save your eyes from being slowly sautéed, be sure to mention to them that it’s actually been shown video games can improve eyesight.

In 2007 the University of Rochester, New York, revealed a study that had found just 30 hours of “training” on a first-person shooter can result in a significant boost to one’s spatial resolution; that is, the ability to clearly see small, densely packed together objects.

In 2009 another University of Rochester study also found that players of action games can become up to 58 per cent better at perceiving fine contrast differences.

“If you are driving at dusk with light fog it could make the difference between seeing the car in front of you or not seeing it,” study leader Daphne Bavelier told LiveScience at the time.

Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, explained that the ability to discern slight differences in shades of grey, or contrast sensitivity, is the primary limiting factor in how well an individual sees.

“So when does this Christian guy get any time to play video games?”

More recently, however, developmental psychologist Daphne Maurer made news with research suggesting that people born with cataracts could improve their eyesight by playing a first-person shooter.

Earlier this year Maurer, director of the Visual Development Lab at McMaster University in Ontario, revealed a study that had found just 10 hours of gaming had dramatically improved the vision of people who as babies were almost blind, and that after 40 hours they were able to read two extra lines on an eye chart.

Speaking with The New York Times last week, Maurer elaborated on why she thought first-person shooters proved so helpful.

“Well, if you stepped back and asked what might be an effective therapy for visual defects, first-person shooter games have a lot of what’s needed,” she said. “They require a person to monitor the whole field of vision, not just what is ahead of them. The player has to monitor everything, because the enemy could come from anywhere. The game is fast-paced. You can’t sit back because you will get shot dead. We know that the game changes neurochemicals. It causes an adrenaline rush. It also causes dopamine levels to rise in the brain. That potentially may make the brain more plastic.”

“Video games could be actually rewiring the brain and allowing new connections to be formed. They could be unmasking connections that have always been there, but weren’t quite strong enough to be expressed. They might be helping the brain get more efficient at responding to small and weak visual signals. Or all three.”

Playing video games can also help improve the vision of adults with amblyopia, or lazy eye. Participants of a 2011 study experienced significant improvement in 3D depth perception and the sharpness of their vision after 40 hours of play with a patch over their “good eye”.

Amblyopia can be successfully treated in children by using a patch over the "good eye" to force the brain to use and strengthen the weaker "lazy eye," but researchers plan to test this video game treatment on kids too, because apparently today’s kids find eye patches socially awkward instead of the coolest thing ever.

Disappointed Snake is disappointed at how soft our kids are.

They Help You Make Faster Decisions

In 2010, following the discovery that video games can help you see more shades of grey than a Suburban full of soccer mums, cognitive scientists from the University of Rochester also discovered that playing action video games trains people to make correct decisions faster.

Researchers found that video game players “develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, and this benefit doesn't just make them better at playing video games, but improves a wide variety of general skills that can help with everyday activities like multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends in a crowd, and navigating around town.”

That’s navigating around town; not powersliding around town, by the way.

People, you see, make decisions based on probabilities that they are constantly calculating and recalculating in their heads. The process is called probabilistic inference; the brain stockpiles small pieces of visual or auditory information until it has enough data for a person to make what they perceive to be an accurate decision.

Researchers found that action video game players' brains are actually more efficient collectors of visual and auditory information. Due to this they demonstrated an ability to amass the details needed to arrive at a correct decision faster than non-gamers.

They Can Tackle Mental Illnesses

In April this year researchers at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, found a computer game designed to pull teens out of their depression was as “effective as one-on-one counselling.”

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, saw 94 young people diagnosed with depression playing a 3D fantasy game called SPARX.

SPARX is designed to help young people learn cognitive behavioural therapy techniques to deal with their symptoms and, in many cases, it was observed that SPARX actually reduced symptoms of depression more than conventional treatment.

But that’s not all. In a study published back in 2010 and presented earlier this year at the British Psychology Society Annual Conference, a team from Oxford University found that playing Tetris shortly after exposure to something traumatic can actually prevent PTSD-related flashbacks.

Dr. Emily Holmes concluded that Tetris served as “a cognitive vaccine” that appeared to “inoculate against the build-up of flashbacks.”

Participants were exposed to “a film of traumatic scenes of injury and death” and 30 minutes later were divided into three groups. One group played Tetris, another did a quiz and the third did nothing. The team did another study where participants were given four hours of down time instead of 30 minutes.

According to the researchers, the participants of both trials who had played Tetris suffered significantly fewer flashbacks than the others. It’s thought playing Tetris interferes with the brain’s memory storage process, which takes around six hours, and makes it harder for the brain to form and retain traumatic memories that later emerge as flashbacks.

"Yo. You dudes got any double-As?"

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