Gamers can sometimes receive a lot of criticism from people claiming that video games produce bad habits and promote violence. Parents even tend to scold their children for playing too often, but not many people know that video games actually provide gamers with certain practical skills that can come in handy in real life.
Believe it or not, playing video games can help gamers become productive members of society with the useful skills and values they help to hone.
The Life of a Gamer
Yes, it’s true that playing too many video games can produce bad habits, but studies find that gamers who play at least three hours per week make few errors and complete tasks faster. They even tend to score better than non-players when it comes to surgical skills.
Teaching Driving
Most parents are at least a little scared of teaching their children to drive. Well, if your child plays video games, they might have an easier time. Playing racing games can sharpen visual and motor skills, while improving coordination and muscle responses. This makes it easier for a driver to respond to sudden situations.
Improved Learning
Gamers are better able to engage with multiple tasks, keep their attention focused, switch tasks, and make decisions. When tested every few months, gamers were found to use these skills better than non-gamers.
Beyond these practical skills, there are academic skills a gamer can gain. On international exams, students who play games scored better at math, reading, and science. This is in contrast to students who chat with their friends more often or spent more than average on Facebook, scoring lower than average in math.
Quick Decisions
Making decisions quickly is a part of life. Gamers may be able to make them quicker since they have more acute attention spans than non-gamers. On top of that, gamers tend to be able to make decisions better even in high pressure situations, making them more suited for jobs in the military, like flying drones.
Learning Values
Patience is a virtue. Gamers know this by heart after sometimes spending hours doing some repetitive in game training and continually retrying levels they’ve failed at. Video games teach players to continually perform even tedious tasks, preparing them for working in their daily life and persevering even on difficult jobs.
Practical Skills
In studies, scientists find that gamers who engage in games requiring practical skills, like golfing or other sports games, improve their overall coordination. Even games like Guitar Hero can teach gamers to play guitar at a basic level, while creative games might provide gamers motion controls that allow them to gain practical skills needed to become a sculptor or painter. Most games except for button-mashing games teach these types of skills.
Conclusion
Parents have been scolding their kids for playing videogames for years now. This is no surprise considering the idea that a lot of games do promote violence. However, gamers do actually gain many practical skills that they can use in real life with only a few hours a week in front of the television. Watch as games improve coordination, strategic thought, and even patience in daily life.
I also heard video games are good for your cardiovascular system
Really? How can they be good for them though?
These are some quirks that gamers attend to have. Very good list!
Very very good , indeed
I think it’s a bit misleading to say that “video games” are practical teaching tools for surgeons, drivers, drones/pilots, etc. and also dismiss the fact that there are video games that can cause people to act violently or create bad habits, because video games encompass a field of various genres (fighting, RPG, shooter, simulation, etc.). Every game caters to a different audience, and not all games can build skills or make people behave a certain way.
Rather, I think it would make more sense for this article to focus on simulation games, instead of video games as a whole, because it’s (most likely) simulation games that can help build skills for surgery, driving, piloting, etc. Let’s face it; you’re probably not going to become an excellent driver playing GTA V.
Also, I’m a bit skeptical on the statistics, particularly the surgical skills statistics. It just shows percentages. Doesn’t show the sample size, like out of how many participants were evaluated, so if the actual statistics was something like “eight out of nine participants agreed that video games helped them attain a certain skill”, the other way of saying that would be “roughly 89% of participants agreed video games helped them attain a certain skill”, and something like that could be very misleading, because you’ll have such a small sample size. Moreover, what game(s) did the participants play to contribute to the statistics, because that’s also kind of important? And furthermore, the sources backing up the statistics aren’t necessarily credible websites (especially when most of the sources are .com sites skewed towards opinions); it would make more sense to have a peer-reviewed journal focused on the field of psychology discussing findings rather than an amalgamation of sources mixed with opinions and pseudo-facts.