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Five ways video games can make you better, stronger, and faster.
By Ben Silverman
26 Apr 2007
The good and the bad
If you've seen a video game-related story on network television, chances are it wasn't exactly peachy. Despite rising revenue that makes film executives green with envy, the video game industry is often portrayed as conventional entertainment's raucous, hyperactive kid brother. The list of gaming's negative side-effects is seemingly inexhaustible: games are addictive, games ruin relationships, games make kids fat, and of course, games train mass murderers. Pretty scary stuff for a pastime who's most enduring mascot is a jovial plumber.
To point out the factual inaccuracies of such grim claims is a tempting proposition, but rather than simply fan the fires of the argument, we'd like to present a new one altogether.
Believe it or not, games can be good for you. And we can prove it. Here are five ways in which video games can make the world a better place for you, me, and Mario.
1. They can improve your eyesight.
Your mother might have had good intentions when she told you not to sit too close to the television screen, but it turns out that staring at certain digitized images can present notable visual benefits.
A March 2007 research study at the University of Rochester put a group of college-aged non-gamers through the paces of such high-caliber action fare as Gears of War, Lost Planet and Halo. After 30 hours of gameplay, the subjects outperformed the control group in their ability to accurately pick out objects in a cluttered space.
Research author Daphne Bevelier explained, "First-person action games helped study subjects improve their spatial resolution, meaning their ability to clearly see small, closely packed together objects, such as letters... the present study highlights the potential of action-video game training for rehabilitation of visual deficits."
In laymen terms, that means years of fragging might actually sharpen your vision by training your brain to quickly process information. This also has therapeutic ramifications, potentially aiding in the treatment of a variety of ocular disorders including vision loss from aging and lazy eye.
Would we recommend playing Half-Life 2 for 8 hours before taking an eye exam? Not on our remaining lives, but it's good to know that all those headshots might help our heads after all.
2. They can help you focus.
We know, it sounds crazy. After all, how many homework assignments were left unfinished due to late nights spent searching for the Triforce?
Too many, to be sure, but for kids suffering from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), the inability to focus and finish a task goes beyond a love of Link.
Though in its infancy, the burgeoning field of gaming as a means to contend with the negative effects of ADHD was bolstered by a Cornell study demonstrating the positive effects of video game training in ADHD-afflicted youth. Even at an early age, kids seemed to respond well to games as a treatment method, showing significant improvement over their non-gaming peers.
This comes on the heels of an emerging effort aimed at directly contending with focus issues by tapping into brainwaves themselves. Expanding upon technology first created by NASA, the whimsically-named Play Attention system allows ADHD children to control customized video games simply using their minds.
Via a red bicycle helmet lined with sophisticated sensors, children are rewarded for focusing on certain gameplay elements, watching their scores rise as they maintain focus on a moving onscreen object. Over time, they begin to understand that paying attention produces higher and higher scores, equating focus with success. It might sound far-fetched, but as of 2006 Play Attention has been adopted in over 450 school systems nationwide.
And you thought helmets were for the slow kids.
3. They can help you lose weight.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of marketing reps, the image of the overweight, undernourished gamer is, at last, slowly fading. Still, there's no question that gluing your butt to a couch for six hours a day doesn't do anything good for that spare tire, not to mention your proclivity for high cholesterol and heart disease.
So how do you get a gamer to work out? Simple: build exercise into the game.
And in the case of West Virginia, build it into your curriculum.
Anyone who has been to a mall in the past five years has seen Konami's Dance Dance Revolution work its cardiovascular magic on unsuspecting teens, but state and school officials in the Appalachian state have upped the ante by partnering with Konami to put DDR machines in all 765 of its schools. School officials see it as an innovative way to engage kids in physical education, while the kids see it as, well, video games in school. Not exactly a hard sell.
For those of us no longer stuck in classrooms all day, there's certainly no shortage of excer-games designed to fit in the living room. From the myriad home versions of DDR to Sony's Eyetoy Kinetic, consoles have certainly tried helping you shed a pound or two without boring yourself into a stupor. Just watch what they did to one of our own in Yahoo's infamous Project Gutbuster (Mike has kept the weight off, by the way).
And of course, anyone with a copy of Wii Sports knows that an evening of virtual tennis has real-world ramifications, particularly in the triceps and back muscles. Is anyone working on Wii Masseuse?
4. They can help you understand classic literature.
It's no secret that games draw inspiration from books, but one enterprising teacher has turned the tables by using Halo to help his students understand the complexities of Homeric epics.
Roger Travis, associate professor of modern and classical languages at the University of Connecticut, claims that the trials and tribulations of Trojan hero Aeneas chronicled in Virgil's Aeneid mirror those of Halo's Master Chief.
Travis elucidates, "Both Halo and the Aeneid tell a story about a more-than-human hero defeating enemies who would be too much for ordinary people like us - enemies who nevertheless bear an important resemblance to the ones we and the Romans face in our respective presents."
He likens the interactivity found in contemporary gaming to the oral tradition that prompted ancient audiences to connect with their plays, going so far as to actually haul an Xbox to class to help prove his point.
Best...homeroom...ever.
5. They can literally save your life.
There's nothing particularly pleasant about going under the knife, especially if you're wary of the surgeon's skills. That's why before making the first incision, Dr. James Clarence Rosser, Jr. of New York's Beth Israel Medical Center lets his patients know that he's awesome at Super Monkey Ball.
You read correctly. Years of honing his hand-eye coordination with video games have led the good doctor to believe that they can have a significant impact as training tools for laparoscopic surgeons at every level.
He takes his theory quite seriously, and after co-authoring a study proving that surgeons who played video games three times a week were faster and made fewer mistakes than those who preferred to avoid the toys, the rest of the medical community is, too.
http://videogames.yahoo.com/ongoingf...=513460&page=0
By Ben Silverman
26 Apr 2007
The good and the bad
If you've seen a video game-related story on network television, chances are it wasn't exactly peachy. Despite rising revenue that makes film executives green with envy, the video game industry is often portrayed as conventional entertainment's raucous, hyperactive kid brother. The list of gaming's negative side-effects is seemingly inexhaustible: games are addictive, games ruin relationships, games make kids fat, and of course, games train mass murderers. Pretty scary stuff for a pastime who's most enduring mascot is a jovial plumber.
To point out the factual inaccuracies of such grim claims is a tempting proposition, but rather than simply fan the fires of the argument, we'd like to present a new one altogether.
Believe it or not, games can be good for you. And we can prove it. Here are five ways in which video games can make the world a better place for you, me, and Mario.
1. They can improve your eyesight.
Your mother might have had good intentions when she told you not to sit too close to the television screen, but it turns out that staring at certain digitized images can present notable visual benefits.
A March 2007 research study at the University of Rochester put a group of college-aged non-gamers through the paces of such high-caliber action fare as Gears of War, Lost Planet and Halo. After 30 hours of gameplay, the subjects outperformed the control group in their ability to accurately pick out objects in a cluttered space.
Research author Daphne Bevelier explained, "First-person action games helped study subjects improve their spatial resolution, meaning their ability to clearly see small, closely packed together objects, such as letters... the present study highlights the potential of action-video game training for rehabilitation of visual deficits."
In laymen terms, that means years of fragging might actually sharpen your vision by training your brain to quickly process information. This also has therapeutic ramifications, potentially aiding in the treatment of a variety of ocular disorders including vision loss from aging and lazy eye.
Would we recommend playing Half-Life 2 for 8 hours before taking an eye exam? Not on our remaining lives, but it's good to know that all those headshots might help our heads after all.
2. They can help you focus.
We know, it sounds crazy. After all, how many homework assignments were left unfinished due to late nights spent searching for the Triforce?
Too many, to be sure, but for kids suffering from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), the inability to focus and finish a task goes beyond a love of Link.
Though in its infancy, the burgeoning field of gaming as a means to contend with the negative effects of ADHD was bolstered by a Cornell study demonstrating the positive effects of video game training in ADHD-afflicted youth. Even at an early age, kids seemed to respond well to games as a treatment method, showing significant improvement over their non-gaming peers.
This comes on the heels of an emerging effort aimed at directly contending with focus issues by tapping into brainwaves themselves. Expanding upon technology first created by NASA, the whimsically-named Play Attention system allows ADHD children to control customized video games simply using their minds.
Via a red bicycle helmet lined with sophisticated sensors, children are rewarded for focusing on certain gameplay elements, watching their scores rise as they maintain focus on a moving onscreen object. Over time, they begin to understand that paying attention produces higher and higher scores, equating focus with success. It might sound far-fetched, but as of 2006 Play Attention has been adopted in over 450 school systems nationwide.
And you thought helmets were for the slow kids.
3. They can help you lose weight.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of marketing reps, the image of the overweight, undernourished gamer is, at last, slowly fading. Still, there's no question that gluing your butt to a couch for six hours a day doesn't do anything good for that spare tire, not to mention your proclivity for high cholesterol and heart disease.
So how do you get a gamer to work out? Simple: build exercise into the game.
And in the case of West Virginia, build it into your curriculum.
Anyone who has been to a mall in the past five years has seen Konami's Dance Dance Revolution work its cardiovascular magic on unsuspecting teens, but state and school officials in the Appalachian state have upped the ante by partnering with Konami to put DDR machines in all 765 of its schools. School officials see it as an innovative way to engage kids in physical education, while the kids see it as, well, video games in school. Not exactly a hard sell.
For those of us no longer stuck in classrooms all day, there's certainly no shortage of excer-games designed to fit in the living room. From the myriad home versions of DDR to Sony's Eyetoy Kinetic, consoles have certainly tried helping you shed a pound or two without boring yourself into a stupor. Just watch what they did to one of our own in Yahoo's infamous Project Gutbuster (Mike has kept the weight off, by the way).
And of course, anyone with a copy of Wii Sports knows that an evening of virtual tennis has real-world ramifications, particularly in the triceps and back muscles. Is anyone working on Wii Masseuse?
4. They can help you understand classic literature.
It's no secret that games draw inspiration from books, but one enterprising teacher has turned the tables by using Halo to help his students understand the complexities of Homeric epics.
Roger Travis, associate professor of modern and classical languages at the University of Connecticut, claims that the trials and tribulations of Trojan hero Aeneas chronicled in Virgil's Aeneid mirror those of Halo's Master Chief.
Travis elucidates, "Both Halo and the Aeneid tell a story about a more-than-human hero defeating enemies who would be too much for ordinary people like us - enemies who nevertheless bear an important resemblance to the ones we and the Romans face in our respective presents."
He likens the interactivity found in contemporary gaming to the oral tradition that prompted ancient audiences to connect with their plays, going so far as to actually haul an Xbox to class to help prove his point.
Best...homeroom...ever.
5. They can literally save your life.
There's nothing particularly pleasant about going under the knife, especially if you're wary of the surgeon's skills. That's why before making the first incision, Dr. James Clarence Rosser, Jr. of New York's Beth Israel Medical Center lets his patients know that he's awesome at Super Monkey Ball.
You read correctly. Years of honing his hand-eye coordination with video games have led the good doctor to believe that they can have a significant impact as training tools for laparoscopic surgeons at every level.
He takes his theory quite seriously, and after co-authoring a study proving that surgeons who played video games three times a week were faster and made fewer mistakes than those who preferred to avoid the toys, the rest of the medical community is, too.
http://videogames.yahoo.com/ongoingf...=513460&page=0
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