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Video
games...good for you?
By:
Margerry Yuhico
Forget the saying, "Video
games will rot the mind." Regular players of action video games
are not only wiping out an entire population of bad guys and saving
the world from the undead, but they also exhibit great peripheral
vision. Besides the blood and guts, there may be overlooked benefits
in violent video games like The House of the Dead, Medal of Honor
and Grand Theft Auto III, according to a study from the University
of Rochester.
In fact, violent video games
may be good for you!
The study found that young adults
who regularly played action-based video games showed better visual
skills, which explains their abilities to keep track of objects appearing
simultaneously, from hit points to ammunition and a hoard of enemies
on the screen. Game players also processed fast-changing visual information
more efficiently.
Jonatan Alvernaz, FIU sophomore,
is just one of the many excited about this study. He probably owes
his great peripheral vision to the tons of video games he owns. He
said having that type of vision really helps his performance in marching
band.
"Video games are better
than books because you can actually see what's going on and you can
interact with it," said Alvernaz.
In the Rochester study, sixteen
males between the ages of 18 and 23 took a series of tests that measured
their ability to locate the position of a blinking object, count the
number of simultaneous objects on a screen and pick out the color
of a letter of the alphabet. After six months, those who played video
games performed better in all tests compared to those who didn't.
Other separate studies suggest
that video games are useful teaching methods, forcing people to read
carefully, think logically to solve mysteries and puzzles, and in
many role-playing games, to read maps.
NASA psychologist and electrical
engineer, Alan Pope and psychologist Olafur Pallson are using Nintendo
and PlayStation games to treat Attention Deficit Disorder.
In some ways, the Rochester study
can be related to a recent story suggesting that the popular usage
of mobile phones and text messaging is producing a generation of people
with stronger and more powerful thumbs.
Even though this study was never
replicated, the idea that technology can create an advanced being
is a persistent fantasy in science fiction. That ideal stretches as
far back as the Enlightenment. Mary Shelley used the theme of technology
to piece together the monster in Frankenstein and androids
are present in many science fiction novels.
Although video games are often
portrayed negatively as having an addictive quality, there is currently
no category for video game addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders utilized to diagnose psychological disorders.
It may seem like a futuristic
fantasy: using neurological sciences to discover technology's affect
on our motor skills. But it's a dream that's now closer to reality.
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