Better living through video games?

[RoyGBiv]

This is just a little tweak for those out there who tend to go on rants about the idiocy of gamers.

When he snags downtime from his schoolwork, Ryerson University student Brad Evans gabs with friends, grooves to Kanye West on his MP3 player and races virtual hotrods on his Sony PlayStation. All at the same time.

Before you assume gadgets and video games fry the minds of the future, consider this: Canadian researchers are finding evidence that the high-speed, multitasking of the young and wireless can help protect their brains from aging.

A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind. Just as people fluent in two languages learn to suppress one language while speaking the other, so too are gamers adept at shutting out distractions to swiftly switch attention between different tasks.

A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060209.wxbrains09/BNStory/Science/home

[varkam]

1. Since Ich spreche Deutsch and play video games...

I guess that means I'm never getting Alzheimers.

[ChoralScholar]

2. Most of today's video games are not easy

by any stretch of the imagination. There has to be an upside somewhere, right?

[RoyGBiv]

3. If nothing else ...

I have full training in how to deal with an invasion of demon hordes from Mars...assuming I can get my hands on a BFG9000. :-)

[varkam]

4. Exactly.

Because you're just not handling it with a shotgun. I mean have you *tried* to kill those things with just a shotgun? Jesus!

[RoyGBiv]

5. Funny story ...

Well ... funny to me anyway.

I have a friend who has played through Doom 3 using nothing but the double-barrel shotgun and soul-cube, the latter because a certain enemy requires it. It took him several months to accomplish this, saves every minute, so many reloads I couldn't begin to count them ... He lost 20 pounds while he was doing this because he'd forget to eat. He took a hiatus at work, and by that I mean he's a college professor who spent his "research hiatus" playing Doom.

I'm a gamer myself, but this guy ... I have no idea what to think of him.

[varkam]

6. Now *that's* dedication! n/t

[ixion]

8. yeah, I've known gamers like that... I try and have a bit more control

I'm able to keep it to an hour or two in the evenings and maybe a bit more on weekends, although I've gone through periods where I've done nothing but basically play all day.

Tribes Vengeance® rules! :-)

[ixion]

7. exactly... give me my spin fusor and I'm ready to go

:rofl:

[Deja Q]

9. Yes. And I bet they're obese as Porky Pig too.

That was propaganda, pure and simple. All the games today are First Person Shooters. Makes people better for killing other people; AND the tasks involved are mindless repetition. Mindless repetition does not improve the memory, except for the function you're repeating.

Crossword puzzles are eminently more effective.

Exercise is the best of all. And the US, the country with the most video games, also has the most overweight people in it. And it's made our kids more interested in playing games than it is in making them. And when we're discarded, the next group of exploited programmers will be hooked then discarded too.

[ChoralScholar]

11. All the games today are first person shooters?

What a sadly ignorant statement.

Even if your statement were true, (which it is not, by the way) gamers rent or buy these games (FPS) and beat them in a matter of hours. They're kid stuff to hardcore gaming freaks.

From GameFly.com (a popular game rental site)

Playstation 2 Games
------------------------------
Action Adventure - 375
Arcade Puzzle - 51
Fighting - 76 (Mortal Kombat and such)
Kids/Family - 58 (Shrek, Backyard Baseball, etc)
Racing - 155 (Gran Turismo, Need for Speed)
RPG - 96 (Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, etc.)
Shooter - 128 (Socom, Medal of Honor, etc.)
Sports - 159
Strategy/Sim - 88 (The Sims, etc.)

-------------------------------
So, of 1186 games, 128 are Shooters. Thats 10%. That doesn't qualify it for 'all games', or even 'most games'. The best you can hope for is 'some games are shooters'. To be accurate, '1 out of 10' games are shooters.

OF the top 12 most popular rentals:

Tales of Legendia (RPG)
Shadow of Colossus (Action Adventure)
Devil May Cry 3 (Action Adventure)
Resident Evil 4 (Action/Adventure - but I call it a shooter)
Prince of Persia (Action/Adventure)
Arena Football (Sports)
25 to Life (Action Adventure)
God of War (Action Adventure)
Gun (Action/Adventure - also probably a shooter)
Soul Calibur III (Fighting)
MVP NCAA 06 Baseball (Sports)
Dragon Quest VIII (RPG)

Not one pure shooter in the whole bunch, but I'll concede on Resident Evil and Gun, because I've seen them.

No game I've played lately has been mindless repetition. The games I, and a lot of other people, like are the ones that require problem solving skills, i.e. playing a certain scene over and over so you can solve the problem and move on. I also enjoy sports games, which if you play them well, require just as much multitasking and discrete thought as coaching the real thing.

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So, my point is, get your head out of the sand, and get educated about what you're talking about here. Many successful professional people find gaming a very valid and fulfilling hobby. And many of us are not obese!

[Caretha]

10. Interesting article - thanks for sharing

It confirms many of my experiences playing MMORPGs for the past 4 years. I'm what would be considered a "mature gamer". I substitute computer gaming in my spare time vs watching 'sit-coms' and mindless tv propaganda.

One of the benefits is belonging to different groups of high school to college age people online who share the same game goals and getting to see how they connect to the world and their views of it today.

Their sophistication, ability to relate to all races, nationalities, not to mention how very very bright they are is one of my greatest pleasures and gives me tremendous hope for the future.

I witness almost on a daily basis them discussing their school work, their future plans, what they think politically and why. I love watching them relate to and trying to communicate with people from all over the world in their native languages.

The online gaming world is much bigger than you would believe. I play everyday with Russians, Koreans, Japanese, Italians, South Americans, French, English - on and on. The vast majority of "gamers" are under 30.

It truly is fascinating. I'm going to post this article to my guild board. The average age there is 18.