Most people think gamers are aggressive, lack self-control, and cannot delay gratification. Someone who plays World of Warcraft might be seen with prejudice. Video games have a bad reputation but the E-Sports world is gradually increasing.
There is a great hype around the subject, as more than 2.5 billion people in the world are active gamers. Many people are concerned about action and first-person shooter games, thinking these types of games teach violence, especially to children who now become video gamers at an early age. More than 60% of young children and teens play video games for an average of two hours per day, according to gaming experts from college paper reviews.
But apart from the prejudice against them, video games truly have the power of making you a better person. They are so well crafted and developed that they put some critical parts of your brain to work, thus making them work better.
So, how can video games make us become better people?
There is a wide variety of video games. They can be adventure, first-action shooters, action, role-playing, sports, strategy, or puzzle. Some people might think that only a few types of video games can improve your problem-solving skills, but this is not true. While puzzle or strategy games might more obviously help you improve your problem-solving skills, other genres have this effect too.
The thing is, nearly every video game has a storyline and quests to complete. As you progress in the game, your quests become more and more complicated.
This complexity is what helps a gamer develop and improve their problem-solving skills, according to a study by buy college papers. The best thing about them is that you get instant feedback. If something went wrong, you will probably not complete the quest, so you need to try again. If you succeed, the quest is complete and you advance to the next one.
Along with problem-solving skills, video games help people improve their decision-making skills. We all would want to have more time to make some decisions, but life simply isn’t so generous all the time. The same goes for video games, which sometimes may require the player to make quick decisions.
Video games also teach an invaluable life skill, decisions have consequences. The decisions players make have a direct impact on their success in the game, so they strive to make the best decision in a quick time.
Good decision-making skills on top of well-developed problem-solving skills can help someone solve complex problems and issues not only in the world of video games but in real life too. Those skills are already there, developed and polished, and they only need to be put to practice.
Researchers have found out that video games are positively linked to better cognitive performances. They have analyzed the time spent by a large group of gamers daily and their performance on working memory tasks. Gamers score far better than non-gamers at visual and verbal working memory, meaning they can retrieve information better for longer periods. It is an important component of the decision-making process, and video games develop it well.
Players have to complete different quests and they need to know and remember some details that can make the difference. Especially when they fail to complete a quest because they made a mistake, they will surely not repeat it and will try to make better decisions next time.
The best thing about video games, apart from the storylines, is the graphic design. They are so beautifully developed that they catch and maintain your attention for hours. But the most exciting thing about these is that they enhance players’ attention to stimuli.
We live in a world of distraction where everyone is competing for our attention. This is why our streets are filled with massive ads that urge us to buy or use certain products or services. Video games have a lot of social cues that improve your spatial awareness.
When given tasks to locate specific things in an environment, gamers score far better at this task. They can control their attention so well that they instantly enter a flow state where their concentration is elevated. They can also track objects easily in a world of distraction and this is needed whenever you need to accomplish a task or even your life goal.
It may seem odd, but video games have been shown to prevent aging. We all know that some parts of our minds begin to decline with age. Working memory, abstract reasoning, attention, and mental flexibility all deteriorate the older we get. Some studies show that working memory depends on the quick processing of new information and begins to decline at the age of 30. Video games develop and improve working memory, thus preventing their aging.
But do those benefits really make you a better person? In a way, yes: we gain lots of handy skills and preserve the good qualities of our brain. However, these perks can be useless if the person is morally undeveloped. A skillful and shrewd individual can use all these benefits in a detrimental way. So in order to use these advantages for good, we must grow up morally.
This is where video games step in again.
Some types of games have such profound stories to tell that it really puts them on the level of a good book or a movie. Books and cinema have a powerful influence on our moral education. The same applies to video games as well. Take for example Shenmue game series: a story of a young fellow who undertakes a journey to avenge his father’s death – this story had a significant moral impact on players who participated in all the complicated situations that the main character had to undergo. In the end, this story is incredible and has plenty of great principles to teach, such as commitment to friends, respect to elders and women, protection of the weak, discipline, and avoidance of bad habits.
This is merely one example of the vast potential of video games as moral educators. Role-playing games constantly ask players to make important moral choices and show them their consequences. Teenagers grow up with wonderful theoretical training not only in the sphere of moral decisions but also in the social skills of a responsible grownup person.
But of course, as is with the literature and cinema, the moral value of the game depends on the message that has been placed in it by its developers. Video games can be either good or bad.
Video games are seen with prejudice because they are expected to make people who play them more aggressive and impulsive. It is important to note that video games can become harmful for some people, as they can easily form addictions. When video games start interfering with other aspects of your life, something is not going right.
However, studies have shown that for those gamers that keep it within limits, video games have various benefits. They can prevent aging as they constantly make you work on your working memory, attention, and mental flexibility. They improve your concentration, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, which are efficient not only in the world of video games but in your professional and personal life too. Additionally, video games can bear a powerful moral influence. But, choose games carefully because their massage and benefit to your self-development can differ drastically.
Author Bio: Leon Collier is a writer from the UK working at an essay writing service UK, the best essay writing service UK. He loves to write about everything: pop-culture, video games, soft skills, self-development, education. Leon is also an editor at the best paper writing services. When not writing, you can find him behind a book or playing tabletop games with his friends. Follow him on Twitter @LeonCollier12
Photo by Jessica Lewis on Unsplash
July 27, 2021
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