You are sitting in a room, no one is talking and you are all staring at the screen of a computer. You are all testing out a new video game. You would think that this would be bad for you in many ways. It can be if you do it for too long but if played only an hour a day it can be beneficial for your health or bodily functions.

Video games can reverse the aging process. Reverse the aging process? Yes. “A study with people over fifty years of age was taken where half the subjects played brain ‘teasing’ video games and the other half completed traditional crossword puzzles(Huffington Post).” The six-week study showed that some of the participants were able to stall the aging process. Did they stop aging? No. But their brains didn’t demonstrate a typical decline in cognitive function. In fact, they all showed improvements in the functions that would be hard for an older adult, like navigation.

Another way that video games can be beneficial is that Mario stimulates the brain. A study was done with twenty-three adults where one group played Super Mario 64 while the other group did not play video games. The group that was playing Mario had a rise in grey matter in their brain.  This helps with strategic planning, fine motor skills in the hands, and memory formation.

Video games could be a pain reliever. In 2010, researchers presented that some of the people undergoing serious treatments had less stress and fear when using virtual reality video games. A Pain Relief Center representative said that “gaming allows the brain to be more busy using other senses instead of focusing on pain.”(Huffington Post) 

Also, people say that video games injure your eyes but that is not true. They actually improve your eyesight sometimes if you are playing an action game where enemies pop up randomly. In a study in 2009 a group of adults played shooting games like Call of Duty. These people showed a boost in their contrast sensitivity function. This helps people notice subtle changes in the brightness of an image. This function is key to driving at night. This is caused by the players locating enemies or having to shoot quick when their enemies pop up randomly. 

Another thing that people say is that video games cause violence in adolescents. But this is also not true. It is just like saying if a murderer played a violent video game it would be like saying that they wore shoes to their murders. Everyone wears shoes. And a lot of people play violent video games. But they don’t go around killing people do they? They usually have a normal life and do not harm others.

The room is quiet and you can hear each player rapping on the keys. The only social activity that is going on is within the game. The man running this event tells us to wrap up the game. I shut down my computer and leave the testing building. The game was fun and could have been good for my brain.