Who would have ever thought that a form of entertainment called video games could enhance the brains of its users! Fact is that among all the awesome electronic artwork, fascinating animations, the terrific music, evoking plots, and what not, the possibilities of educational grains are still connected to it, and to grasp it you only need to dive in a little closer.
Improve strategic thinking
Rare is the video game that doesn’t require its player to make a decision two or three steps ahead of a current situation. With constant play, players quickly learn the advantage of strategic thinking and they start to apply it to actual world opportunities.
Enhances problem solving
Although the same could be said about any game, video games have proven in study after study to improve problem-solving skills. This is because most (if not all) games are centered around a problem and then challenge the player to solve it. In just one game, a player may solve anywhere from three to a hundred or more different problems.
Improves hand and eye coordination
If you find this hard to believe, pick up a game controller and try to maneuver around the game. Manipulating a game controller demands the same skills that it takes to maneuver a mouse around a computer screen.
Facilitate quick decision-making
One quality of video games that lends to quick decision making is its impromptu situations. The element of surprise is always around the corner and it’s what makes games exciting to play. To win however, players must be able to make smart decisions within a very short amount of time.
Stimulates the imagination
We don’t really understand the argument against things like television, videos, and gaming where people use the lack of imagination to support their part of the debate. Some people claim that video games take away from the imagination because games supply the mind with things instead of encouraging the mind to come up with these things on their own. Bear in mind that these are the same people who say a stack of blocks is sufficient to grow a child’s imagination. Of course we couldn’t disagree more. The imagery in video games only fuels the imagination and gives it a spring board to form new possibilities that might not have occurred otherwise.
Encourage exploration
In role-playing games, players must venture off the beaten path and explore the unknown. They have to open doors without knowing what’s behind them. They have to enter areas of the game without knowing the consequence. And they have to interact with characters that they’ve never met before. Inside these particular kinds of games, the opportunity to gather up the courage to explorer unknown territory isn’t just available, it’s required.
Enforce memorization
Another feature of video games is its strong influence on memorization. The terrain portrayed inside some of these games is huge, yet accessing the maps can be cumbersome and disruptive to the game. To compensate, gamers will not only memorize a large portion of the terrain, they’ll remember the tasks required to get to specific areas.
Teaches the consequence
All computer and video games operate off of an “action – reaction” principle. Do something, and the game will react. This is a great opportunity to learn about consequence – whether this opportunity is experienced from a gamer’s point of view or a programmer’s point of view.
Teaches patience, dedication, and endurance
No great game can be conquered in a day. In fact, some of the best and most popular games take weeks or months to finish. Practice makes perfect, that’s what always comes in mind especially when we encounter incredibly hard and challenging parts in the game that makes us more aggravated to beat it… even just once from hundreds of tries… we know then that learn the value of patience, dedication, and endurance.
Language
For those whose native language is not english (or even japanese), video games provides the free and unforced learning of the language default to the game. I am one to testify that most of learned vocabularies may have came from hours after hours of playing video games, especially Role Playing Games which are known to have a giant library of dialogues which features contexts fabricated by substantial association of words.
These are just some of the educational opportunities hidden inside video and computer games. After closer investigation, we’re sure you can find more in addition to hours of fun and amazement.
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