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I used video games as therapy as a child, and as an adult I began to study the benefits of video games. This isn’t really a TV show, but a real-life experience for researchers at Georgia State University.
Dr. Tim Jordan, now a postdoc at the school, suffered from eye problems as a child, when he was 5 years old, vision in one eye was significantly worse than the other a lot of.
After the visit, the doctor recommended that he cover the eye with better vision while playing video games with the eye with lesser vision. The effectiveness of this approach is of course debatable, but the end result is that the visual processing power of Dr. Jordan’s eye has been greatly enhanced, thereby avoiding the result of blindness, which he himself believes is inseparable from playing video games. It’s open.
Image source: 123RF
In his personal experience, Dr. Jordan believed that appropriate video games were good for the brain, so he approached Georgia State University’s Professor Mukesh Dhamala The specific molecular mechanism was explored together.
They recruited 47 current students, 28 of whom played video games regularly and 19 who did not. They were then asked to lie inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine while undergoing a simple test.
Related research published in Neuroimaging: Reports
With the help of a special lens, the volunteers were able to see a random moving point in the special picture, and they needed to press the button in their hand to indicate the direction of the movement of the point they saw. The researchers then recorded the volunteers’ overall level of completion.
Based on the analysis, volunteers who played video games on a regular basis performed significantly better, submitting answers more quickly and accurately. Also, speed and accuracy are improved simultaneously, rather than forcing a preemptive answer by reducing accuracy.
▲Playing video games can affect activity levels in specific brain regions (Image source: Reference [2])
The imaging results showed that this rapid response was associated with increased activity in specific brain regions, including the right auxiliary motor area and the left thalamus. The stronger the activity in these brain regions, the better the volunteers tended to perform.
The researchers note that “Playing video games can potentially enhance the process of sensory, perceptual, and decision-making skills, thereby enhancing an individual’s ability to perform tasks.“ p>
Dr. Jordan believes that video games can be a candidate for cognitive training, especially a continuous exercise of the individual’s behavioral decision-making skills.
In addition to the findings of Dr. Jordan and colleagues, past research has also suggested that reasonable video game play may indeed have health benefits. Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have found that children who play video games a little longer than average perform better on intelligence tests.
According to their study, which has been published in Scientific Reports, the research team recruited more than 5,000 children and initially administered a cognitive ability test. After 2 years, they followed up with the participating children, who reported that the children in the study watched an average of 2.5 hours a day watching TV and playing video games for 1 hour a day.
▲Time spent playing games per day for boys and girls aged 9-10 (Image source: Reference [2])< /p>
In the second test, the IQ scores of the children who played more than the average amount of time were 2.5 points higher than the other children. But there was no such connection between watching TV too much or too little.
Similarly, a collaborative study by American and Swiss scientists in Communications Biology found that video games reliant on visual attention and reaction speed could improve orientation in volunteers and memory tasks. Games like action combat can improve the brain’s visual processing and working memory.
Furthermore, scientists have even observed that an intense video game can lower blood sugar levels, resulting in beneficial physiological effects similar to jogging.almost.
But all benefits must be premised on maintaining a reasonable amount of play time. A team of Oxford University researchers found that children who played video games for more than 3 hours a day were more likely to lose interest in school and were instead associated with hyperactive, fighting behaviors.
“The association was not related to the type of game played, but only to the amount of time played, which is low risk but can also be a factor in children’s behavior.” Oxford. Dr. Andy Przybylski of the University noted.
In short, although the game is good, don’t be addicted to it.
References:
[1] Study: Video game players show enhanced brain activity, decision-making skill. Retrieved July 13, 2022 from https:https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-07- video-game-players-brain-decision-making.html
[2] Timothy Jordan et al, Video game players have improved decision-making abilities and enhanced brain activities, Neuroimage: Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.ynirp.2022.100112
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[3]Action video games make players better learners of visual and memory tasks. Retrieved July 18, 2022 from https:https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-action- video-games-players-learners.html
[4] Poor behavior linked to time spent playing video games, not the games played. Retrieved July 18, 2022 from https:https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03- poor-behavior-linked-spent-video.html
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