How Computer Games Can Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

Games, in particular, can be seen as synthesis of many different genres: some video games (Katawa Shoujo) amount to literary works, some function purely as entertainment (like Fallout), and otherwise offer challenges that force one to try again and again in order to finish.

Some games, such as Bridge Builder or even CS: GO are educational; some games, such as chess, or puzzle games, demand intelligence or cleverness from the player.

Cognitive Benefits

Recent studies suggest that playing computer games increases problem-solving abilities. It does so, according to its authors, for several reasons: for one thing, most games allow you to die and resurrect with minimal loss; this enhances persistence and grit, as players keep at challenging tasks without getting discouraged and giving up.

Because such games (moving objects around a screen, processing visual stimuli, clicking keys and trying to hit an oncoming adversary) require their players to commit different facets of brain function concurrently, the mode of action is supremely demanding and engaging.

Research has shown that commercial videogames can increase players’ psychological insights within cognitive spheres like reaction-time and processing speed, memory, attention span and spatialisation abilities – e.g., brain training games such as Lumosity Peak Elevate; as well as strategy/simulation titles, such as Civilization Europa Universalis Cities: Skylines, etc.

Emotional Benefits

These immersive and fun experiences in computer games offer players a special opportunity for distraction, where they tend to immerse themselves into the virtual reality and successfully escape from reality. At the same time, they can fully enjoy it. second, the sense of accomplishment that can be achieved while playing computer games is an important trait that fosters psychological wellbeing.

Numerous positive mental well-being benefits have also been reported from playing video games, including ‘relaxation and stress reduction’ (Russoniello et al. 2009; Wack and Tantleff-Dunn 2009; Snodgrass et al. 2011b), and these empirical findings are moderated by increased frequency of game play.

In the US, where healthcare costs have grown rapidly and technology is becoming less available as a treatment tool, it is time for counsellors to take gaming seriously as a possible treatment for their clients. Gaming is a financially inexpensive, on-demand, research-verified, stigma-free, treatment resource that is more likely to be available to clients and their counsellors, builds rapport and earns trust, and is complementary and enhancing to the counselling process.

Social Benefits

Players have to generate a working idea about the trade-off between the points and the difficulty of the board; explore ways of deciding whether they would deserve those points; try out various heuristic strategies; and make a decision alongside several others. In short, playing video games offers a dynamic learning environment in which ideas are generated, solutions tested, hypotheses checked, options debated and decisions made. This style of learning can be particularly effective for the training of critical thinking skills. Sec Your Language Training, a computer game for improving social skills, is marketed as an effective way to train speech and communication skills by having users experience linguistic scenarios in a game.

Many social skills games promote co-operation between the players. Working together and embracing each other’s special traits (in the game) can promote teamwork and collaboration. It’s beneficial for a person to develop the teamwork abilities. These abilities can be transferred directly over to the everyday life. The skills that people can pick up by playing such games are verbal/nonverbal communication skills, conflict resolution, empathy skills and verbal/nonverbal negotiation skills.

Despite gamers being known for their shy demeanour, escaping reality with their virtual games, scientific research proves otherwise. In an investigation conducted by Forbes regarding multiplayer online users and non-users, participants who partook were more likely to help their friends in reality rather than the comfortable ‘escapers’.

Educational Benefits

Video games offer an environment that’s low-stakes enough to fail without judgment and consequences, which can lead students to embrace a growth mindset through which failure is no longer something to fear, but a step toward mastery.

It helps develop logical and abstract reasoning, memory, creativity (ever tried to design your own game?) and social interactions (especially if you are talking about two-player games).

Games have been developed to teach a wide range of curriculum objectives, from maths and science to art and language arts; there’s no shortage of titles. One of the most commonly cited benefits of educational games is increased engagement among students. Teachers attest to this.

This is because gaming presses the ‘rehearsal circuit’, as it makes players perform multiple objectives and goals simultaneously and so supports working memory – our ability to rapidly recall the things that we see around us. The gamer also uses their hippocampus, the region of the brain that dictates spatial memory and serves as the principal storage of long-term information – skills that are fundamental to many modern learning environments, and that games help to develop. Gaming is already a pervasive part of modern learning.