How many times have you heard about the downsides of gaming? That it turns people into lazy individuals who shirk physical exercise beyond moving their two thumbs and that it’s an anti-social pastime?
While there’s more than a kernel of truth in the fact that too much gaming could make you less likely to go out and take in the great outdoors, it’s always great to hear that there are actually some benefits to playing games, both mental and otherwise.
Bingo is a great example. Many people have switched to playing online bingo at sites such as 32red, Cheeky Bingo and Gala, where bingo has become easier than ever to play. People playing online bingo generally choose to play using the auto-daub feature which means the software marks the numbers on your cards as they match the calls made. However, if you choose to play bingo games online without using auto-daub, you could be having fun and giving your brain a workout at the same time. According to a study by Southampton University psychology department, people who played bingo regularly had better and quicker mental agility than those who did not. The researchers had a test group, half of whom were regular bingo players. They scored better on various mental agility tests than the non-bingo players. The study suggested other games such as chess or backgammon could have similar brain-boosting benefits, but it’s the time constraint on a game of bingo that makes a big difference to the use of your brain during play.
Another research study observed a group of surgeons. The study was carried out by Iowa State University and its aim was to see if there was a link between videogaming and dexterity in other tasks. Half of the surgeons studied played video games for more than three hours a week. Those gamer surgeons proved to be 27% faster at carrying out surgical procedures and 37% more accurate than their non-gaming colleagues. So, if you’re going under the knife anytime soon, you might want to find out your surgeon’s views on Watch Dogs or the latest Assassin’s Creed game before your operation!
There’s also evidence to show that gaming can be a way of distracting patients from pain. Apparently, in order to feel pain, you need to be concentrating on incoming pain signals, so if it’s possible to be distracted during a procedure, you may feel less pain. At the University of Washington, a game called SnowWorld has been developed for burns patients to play while they are having their burns dressings changed (a notoriously painful process that simply has to be endured). Research suggests that the patients playing the virtual reality game while their dressings were changed experienced a 40% reduction in pain than they usually had during a burns dressing change.
A long-term criticism of gaming is that it’s an anti-social activity. However, now with so many ways to play with others – either in the same room on a console or via multi-player online and pc games, gaming is becoming more and more of a social activity. Even single player games such as bingo have a social side to them – the online sites all host bingo chat rooms, where players of the same games can enjoy each other’s company while the game takes place.
These are just a few of the plus points to gaming. One big one that we’ve failed to mention is that it’s a huge amount of fun, of course!
Share on TumblrMichael
More articles by Michael+ »
- Related:
- Gaming