How Could Video Gaming Be Good For Your Health?
Introduction
Everyone in this world knows about the popularity and how fun it is to play games. There are many games in this world for all kinds of people for them to fit in. For example, people who like action packed fighting games can play games like Tekken 7 & 8 or if you like racing games play Need For Speed or Forza. But even though gaming is fun and all, is gaming like this everyday good for you? Now everybody or most people would say no to these questions mainly because if you game everyday well you sit down and don’t move from there if you think from a different perspective, your answer might change. So that is why today, I will talk about how video gaming could be good for your health.
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Before we talk about how video gaming could be good for your health, we first need to talk about when it was made, why it was made and who made it. In October 1958, the very first video game was created by Wiliam Higinbotham. He created his very first game called tennis for two(Not the same as the ping pong game unlike what I thought) though it wasn’t really planned to be this successful and make what today's most played games. He originally made Tennis for two for a science experiment for an upcoming Brookhaven National Laboratory open house but everyone there liked it and it was a hit in the open house.
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Why were video games made?. Well in the 1960s, millions of Americans had invested in TV’s for their homes. But the TV’s were only used for watching stuff for entertainment. But there was an engineer named Ralph Baer who was certain that this technology could be used to play games. So in 1966, while working for Sanders Associates, IncBaer began to explore this idea more. So Ralph Baer and his colleagues developed a multiplayer video game system called Magnavox Odyssey Home Video Game System made in 1960.
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Gaming might be fun and all but when it comes to health, people start to debate. The main reason for this is because people say “it is healthy to play games it's all fine” group or “gaming is terrible it’s not good for your health you shouldn’t play it” group. It’s true that gaming isn't good for people's health but to cover that, there are games that are good for your health. For example, there is a game that was once really popular called Wii fit and Wii sports. These games made you physically move to play the games there. These games do help with your health because obviously it makes you move but these got discontinued in 2013 and died out by the time Nintendo switch came out. Speaking of the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch has a similar game to the game in front. This game is called Ring Fit Adventure. This game was more focused on exercise than gaming. Its main purpose was to make exercise fun and people started to buy it all around the world and it also became one of the most famous games around Youtubers.
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Gaming can even improve teamwork because some games actually need teamwork to play the game and you can invite anyone to come play the game with, like a family member or a friend. There are even some games that let you express your creativity like minecraft or terraria and in both of these games you can craft items which give you the basic materials for these items. Minecraft Education was inspired by a group of educators who saw potential in using the limitless world of Minecraft in classrooms. Also how game-based learning helps students learn stuff easier like coding or how to create stuff.
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Now in case people think we’re talking about our opinion which isn’t totally wrong but just to prove we aren’t “just” talking about our opinion, here is some scientific research for gaming. I wondered if there was any scientific research about gaming and turns out, there is! This research was by a specialist called “Peter Grinspoon” who is also a medical instructor
at Harvard university. There has been a mixed research about the benefits of gaming and here’s a few I found. Gaming can help you get a better control over one’s attention and spatial reasoning. Though these may help, it is actually unclear if it helps in the real world as people really think.
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But there have been studies about stuff that suggest that video games can be beneficial for improving cognitive functions, like memory, problem-solving, and multitasking. This means, video games can help you stay mentally sharp, and increase your creativity. It can also reduce stress which helps out a lot especially if your sad games can make you feel better. Some games can also help develop your maths skills in a fun way, for example prodigy because you use maths to catch cool creatures and use them to battle.
Conclusion
In conclusion gaming is good for many things especially when developing skills. These skills are learning how to work as a team and developing cognitive skills which is basically remembering things and being able to pay more attension. So these skills can help you in your daily life, like if your teacher is teaching you how to do something. It's also healthy when it comes to VR games because it makes you move physically as well. Just like the games we mentioned in RQ 3.
Bibliography
“Are Video Games Good For You? Why Games are Beneficial for Brain & Body.” iD Tech, 8 January 2023, https://www.idtech.com/blog/video-games-are-good-for-you. Accessed 4 May 2023.
“Benefits of Video Games in Learning.” Iberdrola, https://www.iberdrola.com/talent/benefits-video-games-learning. Accessed 10 May 2023.
Ford, Kyle. “10 Surprisingly Healthy Benefits of Gaming.” HeadStuff.org, 11 January 2023, https://headstuff.org/entertainment/gaming/10-surprisingly-healthy-benefits-of-gaming/. Accessed 10 May 2023.
Grinspoon, Peter. “The health effects of too much gaming.” Harvard Health, 22 December 2020, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-health-effects-of-too-much-gaming-2020122221645. Accessed 10 May 2023.
“This Month in Physics History - October 1958: Physicist Invents First Video Game.” American Physical Society, https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200810/physicshistory.cfm. Accessed 4 May 2023.