Because video games are not all about violence, isolation and dumbing down the masses.
For as long as video games have existed, they have been regularly associated with mass killings involving teenagers or young adults, especially in the United States. In France, for many years, the hobby has been discredited and singled out by multiple self-righteous associations. Apart from the aficionados of the video game industry, few voices were raised to defend this hobby which could only have vices.
Of course, we're stretching the point and it's been many years now that the advantages of video games are no longer systematically ignored. Today, however, a new study highlights an asset developed by video game enthusiasts. Led by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Atlanta University in Georgia, USA, the study aimed to test the decision-making abilities of gamers compared to the rest of the population.
Published on the ScienceDirect website, the study brought together 47 teenagers, including 28 "gamers" and 19 "non-gamers". These participants took turns sitting in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. They were then asked, while in the machine, to look steadily at a screen on which dots were moving. From there, they had to press a button on their left or right depending on the direction the dots were moving. Clearly, the "players" showed a much greater responsiveness than the "non-players".
The authors of the study also point out that MRI scans of the participants' brains revealed greater activity in the parts of the brain related to reflexes and decision making in the "gamers". The study details these different aspects and we invite you to read it, if you are interested in the subject.
