Why Video Games Are Good For You

Happy Easter everyone!  Here is my gift to you all today; the first blog post I've done in over a month.  Yeesh.

As promised from the previous entry, today we're going to a little deeper into why video games are good for you.  Again, all of this will be coming straight from memory; no further research will be conducted, and no claims of "scientific proof" will be made.  I hope that as you read this entry (and the previous entry on why video games are bad for you), you will merely take my thoughts and think about them on your own, to see what you think.  There's a good and bad side to everything, and I certainly don't mind if you don't see things my way.

From Pong to Call of Duty, video games have asked players to use their minds.  How far do you have to move the paddle to keep the little ball in play in Pong?  How far do you have to jump to land on that tiny ledge in the original Super Mario Brothers?  Which room are you supposed to go to next in any Legend of Zelda game?  Some of the thinking will be simple, but some of it will be critical.  Games can ask you to make a decision in a split second, or perhaps give you all the time you want to decide on something.  These qualities, differing slightly or dramatically from game to game, are what draw in the millions of gamers around the world.  No, I don't think you necessarily use your brain more in video games than in reading a book or in school (at least, I'd hope not), but video games are a fun avenue for seeing your decisions play out in real-time (within the confines of the game).

Previous research has suggested that playing certain types of video games can be good for you mentally.  I certainly buy into this, especially when "brain training" games like Brain Age are available.  The Brain Age series, for those who don't know, are a series of games available on various systems that task you with using your mind to win the game and post high scores.  The suggested conclusion is that these activities can have the same sort of positive effect on your brain that daily crossword puzzles or Sudoku can bring.  We don't want to limit positive gaming to merely Brain Age, though.  Puzzle games like Tetris and Bejeweled carry value.  Music games like Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution encourage players to learn rhythm.

But let's be real: these aren't the types of games that millions and millions of people play.  Those games are called Call of Duty, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Halo, and others.  I can't really back this up unless you've experienced these games, but the qualities and mechanics of the game also carry some positive effects.  For a first-person shooter such as CoD or Halo, there's the obvious concept of making decisions to stay alive and/or execute kills.  I'm an avid League of Legends player, and there are several layers in that game that I could argue are stimulating for your brain.  A role-playing game like World of Warcraft.. well, I just said it, you play a role.  You start it, you learn as you go, you get better, you earn more rewards, etc.  Yes, there's the obvious issue of getting too absorbed into a role like World of Warcraft, but this is an entry about positive things: see the previous entry if you want someone to agree with you.

Beyond the mental aspects, the Internet and video games have combined to generate vast social networks.  People who never would have known each other before can become friends through meeting each other in-game, online.  People who are friends outside of gaming can use gaming as a method of group entertainment and social interaction.  For instance, one of the reasons I play League of Legends so often is that some of my friends do the same; we can play games together or we can just chat using the system, but either way, the game gives us an avenue for staying in touch.  Should we need video games to keep in touch with people?  No, we shouldn't, but a lot of us do.  Whether it's games or something else, we need something to assist us in staying in touch with somebody.  Maybe you have a friend that you don't get to talk to much outside of a Sunday night conversation about a weekly TV show.  Perhaps you don't see a certain person outside of your book club, and otherwise would lose touch without it.  Online multiplayer video games can function very much in the same vein, and I can tell you from experience that online multiplayer video games are a blessing for my social life, allowing me to keep touch with certain people that I might not talk to much otherwise.

So we've looked at some of the bad and some of the good of video games, and certainly not all of it.  There's still one important matter that I'll get to next time that will sort of combine these two ideas and bring forth a point that I feel is very important to understand in today's culture.

Next time, we're gonna talk about why video games, for the most part, are NOT for kids.  Til then!