Video Gaming

Ten years ago, when you write ‘gaming’ as your hobby, you would probably be getting blank stares. But nowadays, I dare say that gaming has definitely become one of the top hobbies among teenagers. With more and more games popping up everywhere like Half-Life, Medal of Honour, PS3 etc, one should not be surprised by the amount of people being ‘lured’ as they are able to choose their favorite games from a myriad of sources with different themes. While teenagers think of them as a way to kill boredom, most parents think of these games with a vengeance. Instead of doing useful things like revising the newest chapter taught in school or helping mum cook dinner, they waste their spare time sitting in front of a glowing screen, possibly getting backaches and sore eyes.

But parents, playing games on the computer has its good effects as well as its bad influences. Researchers have discovered that playing these games actually improves the hand-eye coordination of the players, enhances their logical thinking skill and makes them more alert to little details that take a non-player longer time to notice. War strategies found in certain games help them to think more logically, educational games assist in their communication and problem solving skills, alertness and so on. Teachers have also found improvement in mathematics, reading and spelling skills of those students. These students can process visual information thirty percent faster than non-gamers and generally score better in eye tests.

Researchers of University of Rochester have recruited some gaming fanatics and performed two tests. In the first test, an image would appear on a video screen for 1/160th of a second, after which the subjects were asked to locate where they had seen the image on the screen. In another test, twelve images were shown for a fraction of a second and the subjects were asked to assess how many images they had just seen. The gamers had shown a higher accuracy in answering correctly than non-gamers. 
Before the gamers open champagne and celebrate, the bad side of spending too much time on playing games is very real as well. Some of the games are extremely violent in nature, and it has a rather huge negative impact on the young minds. Apart from this, spending too much time on the couch or the bed playing these games will also result in obesity, which in turn leads to other illnesses like diabetes. Other than that and the usual eye strain, wrist and neck pain, playing the game for too long will also result in headaches, hallucinations, muscle and nerve damages. Gaming does help to develop the brain, but instead of developing it uniformly, it only develops the sections related to vision and detecting movements. Specialists have also confirmed that children who spent too much time on those games also have a much higher chance of developing a bad posture and also cause disequilibrium in their daily routine. To cure these problems will not be an easy process as they might have to go through simple relaxation exercises or even undergoing physiotherapy and also hydrotherapy treatment.