There are a series of myths surrounding video games that make us consider them as a form of leisure for adolescents and immature men full of risks to our physical, mental and social health. But the truth is that video games are not only for teenagers, adult women and mature men also play games and, furthermore, with the arrival of the Wii, the world of video games has fully entered into shared family entertainment.
More video games, less depression
- To deal with the discredit of video games, a study from the University of North Carolina arrives that relates this hobby with an improvement in emotional balance. It seems that adults who regularly play video games have less risk of falling into depression, in addition to having higher levels of well-being.
- And it is that video games release tensions and eliminate negative emotions, especially all those new games that promote sports, mental training and family fun. That is precisely the proposal of the designers, with more attractive games than before in which mental and physical agility are the protagonists.
- But an improvement in emotional balance is not the only benefit of video games. Gone is the image of the antisocial teenager locked in his room glued to the control of his console. Current video games are more participatory and promote coexistence in society.
Other benefits of video games
- In addition, an improvement in motor skills is observed in people who are used to using video games, as well as greater visual acuity, disproving the myth that video games impair vision. Specifically, it improves the ability to distinguish small objects and very close together and the contrasts between colors are better perceived.
- One of the benefits of video games that has caught our attention the most is their pain-relieving function. It has been found that patients subjected to aggressive and painful treatments decreased their suffering and relieved their stress while they were concentrating on playing.
- On the other hand, the frenetic pace of video games, which forces us to be very attentive and with an unusual speed of reflexes, helps us to make decisions faster and to be able to discern in an instant what is important from what is not. A capacity that can bring us multiple benefits in this intoxication society where we are very often saturated by the speed of information and without the resources to make a quick choice.