Most people would say video games are useless and should not be encouraged to our youth. In this column of Panther Press I will share my opinion on why videogames are important to develop cognitive skills.
Games are mostly competitive to some degree and most games encourage good sportsmanship with rewards and bonuses. Rage quitting (Leaving a match because of frustration) is always frowned upon even from the developers of the game. Good sportsmanship is essential since we face competition everywhere in our lives; with coworkers, colleagues, sport teammates, opposing companies, etc. Therefore, video games will somehow prepare kids for the future.
When playing you must press buttons and you will almost never look at the controller or keyboard. In many games you learn button combinations and most of the time they are very complicated, some combinations being very long. All this promotes memory, coordination and motor skills.
Video Games also promote thinking under pressure as some puzzles or combat in games require you to outthink your opponent. Because developers are encouraged to develop balanced games to avoid criticism, gamers are encouraged to follow specific roles for their squad or bring tools that take advantage of enemy weaknesses. “I think there should be a clarification of the misconception about video games encouraging violent behavior. This is not true as there is no correlation between them, scientifically speaking.” says Mr Maciel, US Math and Science teacher. However everything in excess is bad, even good things. So most experts advise kids and teenagers not to spend more than 1 hour a day playing video games.
Image Source: Rob Fleming
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