14 Reasons Why Playing Video Games Is Actually Very Good For You

Video games rot your brain.

You lose concentration.

Video games make you dull.

Video games are a distraction and are of no use at all.

What will you do playing all these games, do they pay you to play video games now?

No, no, no, no, and yes.

Yes, video games are good for you because…

1. They help to develop problem-solving skills

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A hard level and epic boss can be a bitch. You work extra hard in your head to devise strategies to beat them. Unless you are a genius gamer, you fail the first time and then take another shot, but this time you are thinking of a different novel way to beat that mean bastard (remember the last level of Max Payne 2?).

It gives you good problem-solving skills.

 

2. Enhance creativity

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Video games make you creative. One study found that playing video games helped in increasing creativity in children. You know what the whopper is? Creativity and cellphones have no correlation at all. Dump your cellphones for those sexy gaming consoles and gaming PCs.

*drools over the latest GPU chip*

 

3. Video games improve your mood, are relaxing, and fade anxiety

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Frustrated and angry? Play Angry birds! Who doesn’t like the sight of a whole big structure with pigs on it, brought down by an exploding fat bird?

Games like these instantly improve your mood. They also help you relax when you are anxious before attending that interview to the job you really want.

 

4. They even help you become social

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No, not all gamers are sitting in their moms’ basements, overweight and in their smelly brown underwears, chugging on soft drinks at the rate of 10 litres an hour.

Studies have showed that video games actually help you become social. 70% of all gamers play with someone else on the internet. They make friends too. But, video games are not substitutes for real life socializations. Maintain a healthy balance of real life and online friends.

 

5. Video games help in stimulating the growth of new neurons

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Once considered impossible, neurogenesis (growth of new neurons) actually takes place in the brains of gamers. We all know that grey matter is an indicator of intelligence in the brain. A study showed increased grey matter in the brains of gamers. This means you are literally building brain muscle by gaming.

Video games are the gyms for the brain. Go, workout for 30 minutes.

 

6. They help you think quick, make fast decisions and analyses

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Anyone who has played a fast-paced game can relate to this. Some games need really quick reflexes. Even the simple game of Tetris in its hard levels is a complete finger-biting, sweat-inducing, fast-paced, decision-making workout.

They are thinking about using video games to train soldiers and surgeons to make crux decisions in a split second.

 

7. Video games make you persevere

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“I AM GONNA GET BACK AT YOU! YOU WAIT, YOU PIECE OF VILLAIN SHIT!”, you screamed as you lost to the boss/villain for the 9th time. But, you keep at it. Video games help you persevere.

It’s a very challenging setup and you don’t really want to give up, and you fight it again and again to beat the system. It really teaches you tenacity.

 

8. Video games help you recognize patterns

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At the end of the day, every game out there is basically a code, programmed by people. Large games with many levels have repeating patterns.

You learn pattern recognition even without knowing. Now though, they are making in-game AI (artificial intelligence) so much harder and unpredictable, that finding patterns is getting harder.

 

9. Better hand-eye coordination

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Non-gamers use a lot of brain juice to coordinate between eye movement and hand movement. A study has shown that gamers don’t even think about hand-eye coordination. Most of their brain power is focussed on higher tasks like defeating the AI because hand-eye coordination is already automated.

 

10. Help you navigate better

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Anyone who has played GTA or Counterstrike can relate to this. Games with vast open worlds help you navigate better. You explore landscapes on the scale of hundreds of kilometers in such games. It helps your navigational abilities over time.

 

11. Risk taking

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Almost all games are pro-risk. They are programmed to reward risk-takers. Outrageous solutions to the most difficult problems have you doing the victory dance.

It helps in making you pro-risk, with calculated strategies, obviously. We all know the risk-reward correlation – the more the risk, the better the reward.

 

12. Help in teamwork and better cooperation

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Ask anyone who has played Counterstrike, League of Legends or Dota with his friends. They are almost communicating telepathically with their teammates.

Their coordination and communication go deeper than the usual banter we have with our conventional teammates in real life. Working together to achieve a common goal to the point that you will sacrifice yourself altruistically, comes quite naturally to gamers.

 

13. Better vision

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Video games give you better vision. A study has shown that playing a video game changes pathways in the brain, helping the gamer to distinguish more shades of grey. Called the contrast sensitivity function, it is the same ability that helps you drive better at night. So yeah, it helps you see better.

I had a 50 Shades Of Grey joke here, but it’s too dirty.

 

14. They get you lots of money and help in international relations

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Take the case of the youngest millionaire of Esports – Sumail. He hails from Pakistan and one of his teammates is Sahil Arora, an American-Indian.

Whaaaaat? An Indo-Pak team combo? A successful Indo-Pak team combo?! Yes! And they won a whopping $6 million when they won The International Dota 2 Championships this year, with Sumail pocketing a cool $1.2 million. An Indian and a Pakistani teamed up with three others to win a game that is dominated by the Asians.

And Sumail is just 16! He is 16 and he made his first million dollars!

Esports is the future they say, with tournaments getting better with more audience and fatter prize money. People are realizing that there is a scope of getting into gaming professionally. Big bucks, fame, international friends and a faster, more intelligent brain.

Yeah, I want to game more!

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