The GOOD & BAD of playing games.

Hello & Good Evening. We meet again in this chapter. Real hot topic that can burst your mind.

We all need a space to release our tension. Some prefer to use a medium of social, some by reading novel or magazine, some doing sport activity, and some of us prefer games. OK, there are side effect by playing games. Contradiction and positive side. Educated person with high level thinking will say that games is a part of unhealthy factor to community. Is that right?

First, we will list the GOOD side of Gaming. If you happen to be bored, you can go away from this blog. OK?

When a player playing video games, it gives their brain a real workout. In many video games, the skills required to win involve abstract and high level thinking. These skills are not even taught at school. Some of the mental skills enhanced by video games include:

Following instructions

Problem Solving & Logic
When they play games such as The Incredible Machine, Angry Birds or Cut The Rope, they train their brain to come up with creative ways to solve puzzles and other problems in short bursts.

Hand-Eye Coordination, Fine Motor & Spatial Skills
In shooting games, the character may be running and shooting at the same time. This requires the real-world player to keep track of the position of the character, where he/she is heading, their speed, where the gun is aiming, if the gunfire is hitting the enemy, and so on. All these factors need to be taken into account, and then the player must then coordinate the brain's interpretation and reaction with the movement in their hands and fingertips. This process requires a great deal of eye-hand coordination and visual-spatial ability to be successful. Research also suggests that people can learn iconic, spatial, and visual attention skills from video games. There have been even studies with adults showing that experience with video games is related to better surgical skills. Also, a reason given by experts as to why fighter pilots of today are more skillful is that this generation’s pilots are being weaned on video games.

Planning, resource management and logistics
The player learns to manage resources that are limited, and decide the best use of resources, the same way as in real life. This skill is honed in strategy games such as SimCity, Age of Empires, and Railroad Tycoon. Notably, The American Planning Association, the trade association of urban planners and Maxis, the game creator, have claimed that SimCity has inspired a lot of its players to take a career in urban planning and architecture.

Multitasking, Simultaneous Tracking Of Many Shifting Variables & Managing Multiple Objectives
In strategy games, for instance, while developing a city, an unexpected surprise like an enemy might emerge. This forces the player to be flexible and quickly change tactics.

Quick Thinking, Making Fast Analysis & Decisions
Sometimes the player does this almost every second of the game giving the brain a real workout. According to researchers at the University of Rochester, led by Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive scientist, games simulating stressful events such as those found in battle or action games could be a training tool for real-world situations. The study suggests that playing action video games primes the brain to make quick decisions. Video games can be used to train soldiers and surgeons, according to the study. Importantly, decisions made by action-packed video game players are no less accurate. According to Bavelier, "Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are in the middle of a battlefield, that can make all the difference."

Accuracy 
Action games, according to a study by the University of Rochester, train the brains of players to make faster decisions without losing accuracy. In today’s world, it is important to move quickly without sacrificing accuracy.

Strategy & Anticipation
Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, calls this "telescoping." Gamers must deal with immediate problems while keeping their long-term goals on their horizon.

Situational Awareness 
Defense News reported that the Army include video games to train soldiers improve their situational awareness in combat. Many strategy games also require players to become mindful of sudden situational changes in the game and adapt accordingly.

Developing Reading & Math Skills
Young gamers force themselves to read to get instructions, follow storylines of games, and get information from the game texts. Also, using math skills is important to win in many games that involves quantitative analysis like managing resources.

Perseverance 
In higher levels of a game, players usually fail the first time around, but they keep on trying until they succeed and move on to the next level.

Pattern Recognition 
Games have internal logic in them, and players figure it out by recognizing patterns.

Estimating skills

Inductive Reasoning & Hypothesis Testing
James Paul Gee, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that playing a video game is similar to working through a science problem. Like students in a laboratory, gamers must come up with a hypothesis. For example, players in some games constantly try out combinations of weapons and powers to use to defeat an enemy. If one does not work, they change hypothesis and try the next one. Video games are goal-driven experiences, says Gee, which are fundamental to learning.

Mapping
Gamers use in-game maps or build maps on their heads to navigate around virtual worlds.

Memory 
Playing first person shooter games such as Call of Duty and Battlefield series enables players to effectively judge what information should be stored in their working memory and what can be discarded considering the task at hand, according to a study published in the Psychological Research.

Concentration 
A study conducted by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory reveal that children with attention-deficit disorder who played Dance Dance Revolution improve their reading scores by helping them concentrate.

Improved Ability To Rapidly & Accurately Recognize Visual Information
A study from Beth Israel Medical Center NY, found a direct link between skill at video gaming and skill at keyhole, or Laparoscopic, surgery.

Reasoned judgments

Taking Risks 
Winning in any game involves a player's courage to take risks. Most games do not reward players who play safely.

OK... Now we go to the BAD side of gaming. It should be balance right?

Preoccupation
A video game addiction can be harmful if your child is unable or unwilling to participate in any interests or extracurricular activities other than gaming. The On-Line Gamers Anonymous website notes that it may be a sign of an addiction if your child is constantly thinking about his next video game session, devising ways to get back to the game, abandoning former hobbies that don’t relate to video games or declining social events with personal interaction because he's spending time discussing video games on the Internet.

Health Problems
If you spends all of your free time playing video games and skips meals or loses sleep because of excessive game play, a video game addiction can negatively impact your health. Person who spend more than four hours a day in front of a television or video games in lieu of participating in physical activity may suffer from obesity. In addition, the University of Texas at Dallas notes that the addiction can lead to such medical issues as backaches, headaches, eyestrain and carpal tunnel syndrome--pain and numbness that you may feel in your wrists, hands, shoulders and elbows.

Suffering Relationships
Relationships with friends and family members may suffer if you spending more time gaming than you talking to or going out with loved ones. The On-Line Gamers Anonymous website notes that gaming may be negatively affecting your life if you only wants to talk about video games, lies to cover up the amount of time your spends playing, and argues with you over excessive gaming.

Increased Aggression
Video games that feature violent actions and scenarios may lead addicted players to be desensitized to the violence. Richard Gallagher, director of the NYU Child Study Center’s Parenting Institute, states that players who become engrossed in first-person shooter-style video games, for example, may adopt a detached view of society or develop aggressive thoughts and tendencies.

Poor Performance
Long hours playing video games can negatively affect your performance in education if you preoccupied with video games. You can fail to work at your optimum level because you exhausted from a late night of video game playing. If you devotes more than one or four hours a day to television or video games, you may have trouble falling asleep, have problems paying attention and have lower test scores than other peoples who don’t spend as much time in front of a television or video game console.


We know that most of you guys can't accept the bad side of gaming. For us it must be balance. That's how our life work. You guys clear?

OK, till we meet again in the next entry. Visit our channel in Youtube: GenXY Media and don't forget to follow us in here.


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