For a few days now, I have been playing PUBG mobile (PlayerUnknown's Battleground), which is a highly popular video game which was launched earlier this year on mobile. Please ignore the fact that I am too late to the party.
While the whole world has already played, enjoyed, laughed, cried, made memes about and brutally competed with each other in this game, I only started now and that too thanks to a dear high school friend of mine, who kind of told me that I had to get the game.
Anyways, I did, and suffice it to say, I am simply enjoying it. No wonder so many people had been talking about this online so passionately. The game is superfun to play and you just don't have track of time playing it.
But it's not only about the fun. As I was playing it, I realised that this game in particular can have several other benefits as well. In general, video games have a bad reputation, especially among parents, but trust me, there is a ton of benefits to them which I would like to talk about today.
They Increase Your Problem Solving Abilities
Just think about it for a second. When you are playing any video game, what you are really doing is solving problems. Whether it is a game as simple as Mario, or something more complex like a strategy game, you are trying to figure every moment, your next move, to solve a particular set of problems.
In the game PUBG, you have to figure how to survive throughout the game to remain the last player standing for which, you have to kill other players, hide in certain places and time, choose your weapons carefully, navigate the map without being seen, and so much more.
Life too, is all about solving problems as we all are already aware. There are no shortage of problems and they seem to crop up at every corner just like in a game. We just got to keep solving them, and advance further to higher levels of life.
So, if playing video games can enhance your problem solving abilities, why not incorporate them in your life too? Of course, keep it contained, because if you get addicted, they will become yet another problem to solve.
They Help Reduce Stress
Life is stressful. No matter who you are, you probably have a hundred things in your mind and like I said before, there are problems at every corner. All this has made the modern human really stressful.
Also, we tend to overthink our problems and make them much larger than they really are. So, sometimes we just need an escape to take our minds from all our over-inflated problems and video games are the perfect candidate for that.
By immersing yourself in a virtual environment, you can really forget about the real one for some time and you can actually have fun doing it. Call this a temporary escape but still, it counts, in my opinion.
Also, in a virtual environment, you are free to do whatever you want which sort of makes you feel a little more empowered. This can end up helping you take control of some of the situations in your real life too.
They Can Increase Your Brain's Gray Matter
Playing video games can be really crucial for your brain development especially in the early stages of life. Parents usually have a misconception about gaming that it is just a waste of time and that children should be out learning and being more productive.
Well, children are learning by playing games as many video games incorporate elements of history, culture and languages in a way that is more interesting than plain texts. But there's more. Playing games can actually increase your brain's gray matter according to a study
Gray matter is the part of the brain that is associated with memory, spatial navigation, muscle control, sensory perception, speech, decision making and much more. Gaming provides a healthy workout for the development of all these traits and there is an actual physical increase in the gray matter.
This can be really crucial for children and adolescent as that period is all about developing of the body and the mind to prepare for the later stages of life. So, next time, don't cringe when your kids are playing. Monitor them but let them have some fun as well!!