20 Benefits of Gaming – The Benefits of Games media Outlets never tell you

Gaming has evolved tremendously over the years, starting from retro games to now full-fledged virtual reality games. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the people’s mindset about Gaming and video games. As more and more people pick up Gaming as a hobby and as a career, the more they are judged by society and, most importantly, their own parents. Forget career just the fact that they play games is viewed as a sign of bad habits by many parents and critics in society. Well, that will no longer be the case since noobs2pro is here to help you show the benefits of Gaming.

So are the games really good for you?

The answer is yes. Games are beneficial and helpful way more than the media will want you to know. And the reason is quite simple. Here are the benefits of Gaming:

  1. Relaxes the Mind and Helps cope with stress
  2. Improves Cognitive Abilities
  3. Improves Intelligence and memory
  4. Improves Hand-Eye Coordination
  5. Improves Social Interaction
  6. Builds Teamwork and broad thinking
  7. Helps you learn skills related to specific fields
  8. Improves Focus and concentration skills
  9. Improves problem-solving skills
  10. Enhances Multitasking skills
  11. Help Develop leadership skills.
  12. Increases Creativity
  13. Some Games help improve your fitness.
  14. Faster Reflex and response time
  15. Games can slow down the aging process
  16. Games can help improve your Eyesight.
  17. Games can make you less antisocial.
  18. Games can help Couples
  19. Games can treat depression
  20. Games can help cure medical conditions such as Autism, dyslexia, and Multiple Sclerosis .etc

1) Relaxes the Mind and Helps cope with stress

Gaming is known to reduce stress and help the mind relax. You have to admit that playing fun games makes you feel more relaxed and stress-free. There have more than enough studies to show been shown that video games can be used as a tool for stressed and depressed people to reduce their frustration and relax their minds effectively. It helps you experience a new world without the stress and hassle of everyday life. This is why, after a good gaming session, people calm down and are better able to deal with stress and anxiety. This is one of the main benefits of Gaming.

2) Improves Cognitive Abilities

Games require the player to think and find unique solutions to the problems and puzzles in the game. Tomb Raider is, for example, of the most intellectual games due to the constant puzzle-solving gameplay. This helps players develop the cognitive ability for problem-solving and thus helps increases their Intelligence. There are many such games that help gamers learn and improve their brainpower.

3) Improves Intelligence and memory

Puzzle games and games which require you to remember codes and secrets help train your memory. Many simulation games also help you do the same. Especially for kids, games are an interactive way to learn and boost their memory as opposed to the traditional methods which the kids are not likely to follow.

This is much more entertaining and can help boost your child’s brainpower and memory. This is one of the main benefits of Gaming, where you actually become smarter. Most Games require a good memory to be able to remember things said in the game, whether that is to solve a puzzle or to know what to do, what the requirements are of the quest, or what ingredients are needed to craft a certain item, etc.

4) Improves Hand-Eye Coordination

Most games, especially FPS games, require you have a good hand to eye coordination. Such games require intense focus and hand-eye coordination to help you get easy wins. Now by playing such games, the abilities and muscle memory is improved, leading to much finer control in-game. Games such as counter-strike global Offensive are a good example where gamers learn how to have better reflexes. This is one of the key benefits of Gaming.

There are many professions that require having better hand-eye coordination than the average person.

Scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch decided to conduct a test to see whether, among the group of high school kids, college students, and medical residents who could be more accurate is surgery-related tests. After the test was done on the three groups, the scientists were surprised to discover that the high school students did the best.

Why?

The reason was the high school kids played video games at least two hours a day while the medical residents rarely played any games that required a hand to eye coordination. One of the researchers did insist that the residents would still do better in actual surgery, but that’s not the point. in tasks that require good hand-eye coordination games can serve as a very helpful trainer. (Source)

5) Improves Social Interaction

Many people treat gamers are introverts and antisocial. This is much further from the truth. Most gamers love to play social games with teams. Many gamers have friends from all around the world. Many games require Teamwork and communication, which is only built by interacting with players. Also, many games are made to be played multiplayer. Especially games like Elder scrolls online, which is an MMORPG. A multiplayer game where you can live your life in an alternate world. Making friends going on dungeon raids etc. There are also games like the sims which show you simulation living experiences. You can easily be playing with someone across the world who has never stepped foot in your country. That is the power of multiplayer Gaming and the internet.

6) Builds Teamwork and out of the box thinking

Games have a lot of benefits, especially when it comes to social interactions. Teamwork and communication are a must when it comes to playing multiplayer games. Finding unique approaches and ways to tackle problems with your team while working together is a great way to develop Teamwork and analytical skills. It also helps boost thinking since players need to think and adapt to the opposing players. Especially in games such as CS: GO where and DOTA where you need to adapt and learn and execute with your team painting perfect coordination. This is one of the main benefits of Gaming.

Just like most sports, Teamwork, and out of the box, thinking are some of the key aspects of becoming successful in life.

7) Helps you learn skills related to specific fields

If you want to build your skills, then playing simulation games is one of the best ways to do so. There are so many games which you can use to learn. We recently made a list of games for learning hacking and cybersecurity. Similarly, there are business games that can help you learn more about how to run and manage a business. This is one of the main benefits of Gaming that you can learn a lot of simulation games.

There is a PC building simulator game if you want to be a computer engineer. There are also games like car mechanic simulator if you want to learn about cars. Simulation games can help you get some really amazing skills from the comfort of your home.

8) Improves Focus and concentration skills

Gaming is a very focus intensive. Most games require high concentration and focus. These games thus help gamers train their focus and concentration skills to the next level. Most FPS and real-time games require split-second decisions and creative thinking. There are studies showing increased focus and accuracy in performing tasks after playing games.

A scientific researcher named Vikranth Bejjanki performed a few experiments with the help of his colleagues, where they tested two groups, experienced and inexperienced gamers.

They had them perform several perceptual tasks such as pattern discrimination.

The group with gamers ended up completely outperforming the other group who did not play video games.

The paper stated the following:

“The enhanced learning of the regularity and structure of environments may act as a core mechanism by which action video game play influences performance in perception, attention, and cognition.”

In simple terms, playing games can help improve your focus and concentration skills as well as memory. (Source)

modern combat 5 graphics settings to fix lag

9) Improves problem-solving and spatial skills

Many games have interactive puzzles that push the boundary of your problem-solving skills. Games can thus help you become much smarter when it comes to solving puzzles and problems that require complex multi-step thinking.

Games like Grand theft auto and Minecraft etc. have known to increase spatial memory in children. Escpailly since they tend to memorize patterns and maps in-game.

benefits of gaming

10) Enhances Multitasking skills

Most action games require the player to control multiple things at the same time. Be it a keyboard and mouse or a controller.  Players need to be observant about what’s happening on the screen and also make decisions based on the info provided, make plans, and adat and execute them. Gamers need to think about parameters such as energy levels, health, ammo, equipment, and enemies left in the game. By being able to manage multiple things at the same time. Players tend to develop the ability to multitask.

This is especially helpful for business people and corporate companies that have heavy workloads and high-performance expectations.

11) Help Develop leadership skills

There are many survival games like the state of decay that requires you to manage the role of a leader. You need to be able to take responsibility and make quick decisions based on the data you have. These games require you to manage provisions and resources for the “communities,” securing their safety, etc. Studies done by researchers have shown that players who play such games can display a correlating motivation in their real-world career goals and dreams. The ability to be a leader as well as make quick decisions is helpful in the office and corporate scenarios, thus making such gamers better leaders overall.

12) Increases Creativity

Contrary to popular belief that video games make you dumb and bad in studies, researchers have found that certain video games can actually enhance our brains creativity and memory

The main study was done at both the University College London and the Queen Mary University of London, where 72 volunteers play two different games for 40 hours over six to eight weeks duration. There was a mix of strategy and simulation games.

Here’s is what the researchers said:

“This result supports the notion that the within-StarCraft gaming manipulation led participants to manage more information sources during gameplay, thus leading to enhancements in cognitive flexibility.”

(Source Source)

gaming girl get more subs and views benefits of gaming

13) Some Games help improve your fitness

In the last decade, there has been a huge emergence of motion abled games. In an effort to make games more physical in nature consoles like PlayStation Move,
Xbox Kinect etc. have been made available that has revolutionized the way video games are played. With these games, you can experience the fun of playing outdoors while being indoors.

Researchers at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center recently performed a test to see if video games really help children be more active.

The test involved measuring different parameters of kids aged 10 to 13 while they performed the following three specific activities:

  • playing motion control video games
  • watching television
  • walking on a treadmill

The research team discovered that playing motion-control games was just as beneficial as walking on a treadmill at a speed of 3.5mph.

Both exercises had the kids burn the same amount of calories. Note that watching TV consumed the lowest amount of calories (Source)

14) Faster Reflex and response time

Most FPS and action games enhance human reflex. Similar to hand-eye coordination, your reflex in general and boosted thanks to games.

A recent study in which a group of young adults with no gaming experience played action games for 50 hours.

There was a second group of the same age, which played a slow-paced strategy game instead. This is one of the main benefits of Gaming for fps gamers.

After the study, Green said the following:

“Action video games are fast-paced, and there are peripheral images and events popping up and disappearing. These video games are teaching people to become better at taking sensory data in, and translating it into correct decisions.”

A good for all the FPS fans. CS: GO and Call of duty is making you faster in real life(Source)

benefits of gaming

Must read: Top games to improve your tech skills

15) Games can slow down the aging process

As humans, aging is a common phenomenon that happens to all of us. Though it’s not something, we want its something we cannot avoid.

Getting older and wiser may sound like a great deal; there are plenty of problems that come with it. But guess what games can help you slow down aging. Well, not externally but internally, especially when it comes to your brain. Brain aging is where brain cells start to die at a faster rate resulting in memory loss in elders.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa showed that playing games could help increase brain activity and brain capacity.

The study had 681 healthy people aged 50 and older play 10 hours of video games for five to eight weeks, and what they found was this:

“We’ve shown that 10 hours is enough to slow the decline by several years. We saw a range across all our tests from a minimum of a year-and-a-half all the way up to about six-and-a-half years of recovery or improvement. From just 10 to 14 hours of training, that’s quite a lot of improvement”.

Games that require exercising your mind will help it stay sharper in the long run. Playing good games that require you to think can help you stay younger mentally (Source)

16) Games can help improve your Eyesight

There are very few gamers who haven’t heard their parents say, “you’re going to go blind by playing games all day.”

It was not completely a lie; they had a point since we tend to blink much less frequently while playing a game, and that can cause eye strain and dry eye syndrome.

In 2009 a study involved having a group players who were experienced in first-person shooter gamers play Call of Duty and Unreal Tournament 2004 while the other more casual gamers played slow games like The Sims 2.

After the test was completed, the results were surprising, those who played the first-person shooters had a better vision than the others, and they were able to spot things faster.

A well known Daphne Bavelier discovered that playing action games improves an eyesight ability called contrast sensitivity function. This is one of the main benefits of Gaming.

This helps us differentiate between changes in shades of grey against a colored background. In other words, certain games can help improve your Eyesight and help improve your spotting skills (Source)

benefits of gaming

17) Games can make you less antisocial.

Unfortunately, gamers are stereotyped as people who are awkward social rejects in movies and tv shows. People tend to take that as the truth. Most people think gamers are basement dwellers who don’t have a life.

To find out the truth, the Researchers from three different institutions in the UK and Canada recently did their own studies to find out about the antisocial behavior is among gamers.

benefits of gaming

What they discovered was that gamers were among the most friendly people out there.

“Gamers aren’t the antisocial basement-dwellers we see in pop culture stereotypes; they’re highly social people,”

While observing gamers, the researchers found out that gamers formed stronger relationships than non-gamers due to their matching love of games. (Source

18) Games can help Couples

Psychologists from the University of Denver wanted to find out if playing video games together helped couples stay happier and connect better.

The study showed that couples who partake in fun activities together were much happier and could connect with each other on a much deeper level.

Howard Markman said this:

“The more you invest in fun and friendship, and being there for your partner, the happier the relationship will get over time.”

It serves to prove that couples who game together tend to have happier, healthier relationships. (Source)

19) Games can treat depression

Games can help people find an escape from reality, especially when they re depressed. Inside a game, you always have the choice to restart your life and be someone amazing. It can also help you relax and let out stress.

Researchers in New Zealand wanted to find out if video games can help fight depression. This study was with SPARX, a game specifically designed to provide therapy to teenagers in a more fun and interactive way than traditional counseling.

Over 168 teens with an average age of 15 participated, with all of them having shown previous signs of depression.

While half of the group received traditional counselingthe other group got to play SPARX.

Here’s their conclusion:

“SPARX is a potential alternative to usual care for adolescents presenting with depressive symptoms in primary care settings and could be used to address some of the unmet demand for treatment.” (Source)

Is Sparx the only game? No, there are many more. Depending on what the person likes to play, they can enjoy games at their own comfort and relax their mind in a positive way. This is one of the main benefits of Gaming.

20) Games can aid in curing medical conditions such as Autism, dyslexia, and Multiple Sclerosis .etc

There are many studies (links to studies shown below) done showing that games can help in the process of curing different types of ailments. Certain games help relax the mind and also have better control over your body.

Improving body coordination and health can prove beneficial for people who have multiple sclerosis though they do not directly cure the diseases. But games can help cope with or lessen the impacts. It may also aid in curing diseases in general in various ways.

Studies:

https://nursing.ucsf.edu/news/computer-games-help-people-parkinsons-disease

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120919142006.htm

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129914162

There is still plenty of research to be done on games and its benefits. But the next time you get a lecture about Gaming, feel free to show your friends and family this list if they’re the kind of people who still assume games are to blame for obesity, school shootings, and antisocial behavior. So people need to know the benefits of Gaming.

It may help them understand that games might be helping children in more ways than they know. Share and support the site so that we can reach out to more and more gamers and share the benefits of Gaming.

See you in-game

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.