Playing Online Games: 5 Mental Health Benefits of Playing Online Games!

It goes without saying that the online gaming community is huge! There are thousands of online YouTube accounts dedicated to posting frequent updates to numerous online games, and with an audience of upwards of 217 million gamers worldwide, it becomes interesting to see exactly what kind of effect gaming has on its users. Despite the majority of parents and doctors becoming increasingly concerned about the effects that online gaming can have on their child's health, it may be worth reconsidering as there are 5 core benefits which playing games actually has on your mental ability!

One of the greatest traits that many successful people have acquired over time and experience is strategic planning, and the ability to devise a suitable plan of action for any scenario. Video gaming surprisingly offers a lot in the range of strategy and ‘skill’ as many players are often found in new situations, which require them to think directly on the spot and work out how they can make the best of their surroundings and equipment to get the job done. All of this is being consistently improved on whilst the player is actually enjoying the experience, which then reinforces them to become better at it.

Another thing to consider is that many video games have higher difficultly modes, that will progressively challenge the player that extra bit more, further improving their overall ability in game.

With the immense number of people who play games online, one of the most known benefits of video gaming is that each player is open to communicating with other players from around the world. As a plus, the majority of online video games do allow voice communications, which will allow the user to discuss and plan with other users on the same game.

Not only will this be a boost to the player’s social and communicating abilities, but it will also provide a boost to their confidence with speaking to new people from all different kinds of cultures.

Despite this, there is much commentary about how many online gamers have fallen prey to online predators, who trick the users into giving over information or ‘meeting up’ outside of the online universe. There are plenty of horror stories about how young children have disappeared or been kidnapped by these predators, and in most cases have never been found again. Whilst this is deeply saddening to say the least, players should be safe from these kinds of communications, so long as they are smart with how they communicate with other users, and do not accept any kind of invitation to meet up outside of the game itself.

A lot of video games require the player to make quick movements with their hands and eyes to successfully carry out and attack or manoeuvre, which is really beneficial to improving their hand-eye co-ordination with other activities such as sport. There have been numerous studies recently and in the past to confirm that typically, children who play video games have a much greater hand-eye co-ordination than those who don’t, and that they had much quicker responses as well.

It is possible that certain games improve hand-eye co-ordination over others, and games which involve shooting rapidly or making sharp turns will have a greater affect, yet typically most games will almost guarantee some degree of improvement.

There is no way that anyone can doubt that digital is the way of the future, and anyone who can understand it is sure for a good future career. People who aren’t so ‘tech savvy’ are willing to pay massive amounts of money to have their computer issues fixed as soon as possible, making the tech market a very profitable market to be in.

Playing computer games not only present situations where computer/console parts need fixing or issues need resolving, but it also makes the player more inclined to look for their own solutions to the problem through researching websites. So by facing issues such as a non-responsive controller or video card, simultaneously causes the player to take initiative, as well as feel inclined to do their own research into an applicable solution.

There are many video games which require logic and memory to complete certain tasks through-out the experience. These games not only develop a stronger relation with the player’s memory and ability to carry about specific tasks, but also enable them to use what they knew before to try to solve issues in a new scenario. Plus, the user will find it easier to refer back to other previous memories and information in their heads, as they are constantly practising using the part of their brain which situates in memory.

Therefore, the more they play video games which challenge their ability to remember specific facts or figures, the more they are prone to be better abled in memorising things for later reference.

All credit for this video belongs to http://www.youtube.com/user/SpawntaneousGameplay. By use of this video I in NO way entitle myself to receive any credit.