The Unseen Advantages
of Video Games

By Andre, Keaton, and Willie Mo
Published March 28, 2025

Video games are really fun and have a lot of advantages and disadvantages for children. Many people only see the disadvantages of them, but here are some disadvantages and advantages to video games .

To start, here are some disadvantages of video games. One of them is loss of interest in physical activities. What a lot of people don't know is that you can get injuries like gamers thumb, gamers thumb causes inflammation of the tendons around the thumb . Another is that it can give kids a gambling addiction if they play certain games. These games cause gambling by having RNGs (random number generators) that can give you weapons, clothing, and other accessories. A final one, if people continue gaming despite psychosocial problems, if you continue gaming it can cause serious problems to your brain.

According to Vision Works Optometrists there has been a number of recent studies about hand eye coordination or visuomotor control. Visuomotor control is the harmony of eye movement and hand movement. It can improve or enhance your hand eye coordination by giving a boost to learning a new skill. According to Vision Works Optometrists an “interesting study from 2014 study found that adolescents who played more showed an increase in cortical thickness in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left frontal eye field, indicating greater density and more brain cell connections and thus improved brain function in those areas”.This shows that video games actually have a positive impact on visuomotor control. The relationship between the visual input and hand reaction is essential to almost everything we use our hands for.

Another advantage of video games is that it can improve reaction time.  According to studies by the Neighborhood Academy, “forty-four high school students were involved in this experiment, 17 of whom were gamers. We found that gamers had better average scores and were significantly higher on two of our tests.” One of the tests was a ruler drop test, the second test was a ping pong catch test.these tests showed how much better reaction time was if you play videogames. Even though video games look like just a video game, they can actually improve reaction time and help with everyday skills. 

A final advantage is physical strength. These advantages usually come from VR or the Nintendo Wii. These devices help because they almost only use motion controls. Dominik Siketic wrote on Takeaway Reality, “VR platforms offer exercises that improve balance, coordination, and endurance.” It can do this because of all the motions in games like Gorilla Tag where you have no legs and you move by swinging your arms.

Overall, many people see video games as an unhealthy, addictive, way of entertainment. Those people don’t know too much about how good video games can actually be.