
Playing video games can improve our lives - IraqCombatVet
http://techu4ria.com/scientific-studies-show-why-everyone-should-play-video-games/
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hk__2
It’d be great to have the original papers. Here we have an article that
mention other articles that mention other articles that sometimes give a
reference for the original paper.

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IraqCombatVet
Unfortunately it's much more interesting to source more popular websites than
the actual original studies that nobody cares to read unless it's for academic
purposes.

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jwdunne
There is a darker side to video games that people don't take into account.

As per the article, games are highly stimulating. For children and even adults
(me in particular), time slips away and 12 or more hours have been spent
playing games. This is especially pronounced with ADHD.

No matter how much good video games do for the brain, 12 hours remained fixed
in front of a console or PC is not healthy. There have been cases of DVT due
to bad sitting positions and maybe 4 hours spent on a game.

The other issue is that, if you are prone to hyper focus, you ignore your
responsibilities, including using the toilet or eating. For so e people, games
ARE that captivating.

As a funny but also quite sad story, my fiancée bought a second hand PS3,
which I protested. Each successive weekend, I spent around 24 hours each
completing game after game. She wasn't pleased. Mainly because I ignored her,
contributing absolutely nothing to household chores, and partly because she
was excited to play the games.

A good deal is that I can play games if I want to once the kids are in bed. I
have Half Life 2 half completed, which is a bloody captivating game. I do,
however, try to focus on other highly stimulating activities that don't
entrance me for large blocks of time.

As a side-note, programming has a similar effect. I'd argue that was far more
productive. This actually led on directly from gaming so I can't complain
much.

EDIT: my autocorrect seems to be on a rampage lately. This one takes the
biscuit though: "using the toilet of eating".

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lohengramm
Having played lots of strategic and competitive games in the course of my
life, I definitely spent a lot of time on it, and also experienced everything
you said and more.

Nowadays, in order to keep my focus on more productive tasks, I tend to force
myself not to play, and also not to start playing any new game, because once I
get started, it is hard to stop.

Although the compulsiveness level might vary largely between individuals, I
believe that this kind of compulsive behavior is specially true among MMO
players. The social factor that MMOs bring is just too addictive, even for the
least competitive and compulsive person.

I have to say that games brought a lot of good things to my life, such as
starting me in programming, friends, a lot of brain activity, great moments
and raw fun, but there is a dark side, yes there is, and sometimes I wonder if
it is worth it. It might depend on the situation of the individual.

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jwdunne
Exactly this. My poison in my teenage years was a small MMO with it's own
development platform. Developing content for it became part of the game. I
learned the basics of pixel art, good level design, story development and, of
course, scripting from this game. It became an easel.

It's interesting that I too have shifted to strategy game as I've got older.
HL2 is just a nostalgia thing, I'm not partial to shooters. My biggest problem
games are Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings 2 (now that I use Linux)
and used to be Civ5 and Vic2 on OS X. With EU4, I got so into it I probably
spent half the time watching DDRJake (who us totally insane at EU4 - took
vassalised OPM Athens and recreated Alexander the Great's empire).

Classics like AOE2 and Caesar 3 are a good past-time too.

With treatment for ADHD, I can certainly resist a lot easier. I'm now getting
more urges to program and build things, which I seemed to have lost from my
youth after work grinding me down.

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panorama
In my experience, there's a strong correlation between aptitude at video games
and success. This is just my small, possibly skewed sample, but my closest
friends I've met through playing WarCraft 3 as a teenager at a competitive
level all became high-income, successful, happy people, usually in tech or
finance.

I whole-heartedly believe playing video games early on helps nurture a strong
competitive drive, discipline, and self-motivation. It probably depends on the
game, too. I was playing Civilization II as a 9 year old, played strategy
games like StarCraft and WarCraft competitively as a teenager, and eventually
played online poker for a living. I don't know if simply playing Candy Crush
would yield the same results.

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lqdc13
I played competitive Starcraft and then Warcraft III with several friends. One
still works as a cashier in a grocery store. One works in IT support. One
works for the gov't as a bureaucrat.

I also played WoW with a lot of people. Out of ten people who I still keep in
touch with, none did exceptionally well at making money.

All of these games were major addictions for me, and I'm kind of glad I'm out
of that phase. If some of the people I played with spent as much time doing
anything else as they played video games, they would have moved mountains.

But perhaps that is not the point. We had a lot of fun, and it was a very
enjoyable time for everyone involved. And maybe that is the most important
thing.

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WalterBright
I'm bemused by the finding that playing video games makes one better at
identifying blobs on a video screen.

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oomkiller
My journey into computing basically started with PC gaming. I wanted to be
able to start my DOS games whenever I wanted, instead of relying on my mom to
do it for me. I had to learn what the drive letters were, and how to start the
various games. I eventually became totally enthralled with computers, not with
games, but the nearly infinite number of settings, executables, easter eggs,
etc. This continued through my adolescence, when I learned all about computers
so I could build a good gaming PC with the meager funds that I had saved up.

I used this experience to open my own IT support business in high school, and
later started with Ruby and Rails in college. I've been doing software
development since 2008 now, and I think games helped out a lot, not even
considering the cognitive changes.

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drdeca
I'm not really sure how a scientific study would show that one /ought/ to do
something like "play videogames".

Surely what they really mean is " playing videogames found to have some
collection of benefits, by some measures"?

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PopeOfNope
Everything on the list of benefits for gaming also exist on the list of
benefits for playing traditional sports. Sports also have quite a few benefits
that games don't have, like increased bone density.

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IraqCombatVet
Well said Pope.

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desqpio
except dark souls. dark souls rip your soul apart, tear down your reflexes and
abolishes your mind. it's fun thoug.

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IraqCombatVet
Ah Dark Souls. Best therapy ever! : )

