Kaelum L.

Video Games by Kaelum L.


"Video Games have a surprising amount of reasons why they can be beneficial to your health." says Kara Loo. She studied Creative Writing and Film at Stanford University.  She has been working on narrative mobile games since 2008 at Electronic Arts, where she was a game story writer and a studio manager working on "Surviving High School" and "Cause of Death." Video games can slow down aging, help people form teamwork skills, and relieve depression.  In fact, everyone can benefit from video games.

First, video games can slow aging, this is beneficial to your health because you can live longer. "We've shown that 10 hours is enough to slow the decline by several years. We saw a range across all our tests from a minimum of a year-and-a-half all the way up to about six-and-a-half years of recovery or improvement. From just 10 to 14 hours of training, that's quite a lot of improvement"(@progamedesigns).  This means when you play games for a certain amount of time you can slow down aging.

Video games can also be good for you because you use teamwork.  For example, gaming can help people work together to solve problems. Working together can be accomplished while playing video games because, "In many of these games, players work together in teams to achieve goals, compete against other players or both. Their teamwork abilities are put to the test, and they must hone their communication and interpersonal skills in order to progress (Loo).  This means gaming can help kids build teamwork skills that are necessary to solving problems.

Third, if you are depressed, then play video games!  A study shows,"brain scans show the most active parts of the brain are the rewards pathway system, which is associated with motivation and goal orientation, and the hippocampus, which is associated with learning and memory. These are the two main parts of the brain that don't activate when people are suffering from depression" (time.com). Specifically, when people play video games the brain becomes more cheerful.  The satisfaction of completing a game or level makes the person playing it feel rewarded,  and thus relieves stress. You can also learn about things you may never experience in the real world as well as build creativity.  Clearly, gaming can help people with everyday life problems, which all people have.

Some people might wonder, well since it rewards you so much, is it going to be more addicting? However, you have to monitor yourself while playing and not play for too long.  This is because if you ban yourself from playing video games, then all the brain thinks about is when the next time will be that it's going to play its next game.  Video games are like alcohol because if you drink too much you'll get addicted and if you completely just stop, then you experience withdraw.  So, it's important to use it in moderation so that you don't get too addicted.

If you don't play video games you lose out on teamwork skills, and relieving stress in a fun way.  If you don't play video games then you are going to miss out on all the fun and joy it gives to people. Video games should be apart of every one's life.




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