The Gamer Knowledge Balance Sheet (Knowledge Gained vs. Time Spent)

Video games often a have goldmine of information about myths, history, politics, science, and fiction. What is notable is the amount of knowledge required, the reward for reading inner dialogue in-game is obvious when knowing history, science and math. Not only does it make playing through a game faster, it increases the enjoyable experiences that can be felt. Applying real life concepts with maybe not so real physics can demonstrate the human imagination or other future worldly possibilities.

Much like a balance sheet, we can weigh the pros and cons of playing a video game. The losses and gains from spending an hour on a video game in comparison to reading a book can often be deciphered by real life application. For example, a RPG (Role Playing Game), will have more knowledge based actions on real life myths or situations such as Norse Mythology in Final Fantasy VII created by Square Enix. This game requires the player to read dialogue much like reading a book. The player is allowed to make choices, and see the consequences as they progress through game, growing and expanding the mind's imagination. Einstein once said that

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

They are other many philosophies visited in this game including sacrifice, heroism, war, nature, and love. However, this game remains a mystery to some, for those who want to know what the world would be like in those circumstances as we only get to visit this world through a video game (global warming being one of these specific related circumstances). Despite how closely Final Fantasy VII matches our world though leaving some concepts to be confusing without some previous education or knowledge still is able to teach an important lesson about not giving up and the strength of humanity. In fact, this reigns true as this is one of the most beloved RPGs in the world. We can only hope when the anticipated remake of this game goes into more detail and visuals become more real. The visual information provided in the game trailer of FFVII Remake allows us to see more, or has this world already start to become our reality?

There has been the argument made that video games create an atmosphere to mostly applied critical thinking. The precursor though is that playing a video game should not require critical thinking, though provide a medium for artists and performers to create entertainment and send significant messages about not repeating what was wrong in the past or largely historical mistakes.

Being in line with this argument that video games have the ability to greatly increase cognitive abilities is good way to improve cognitive processes, and also make the mind able to handle more real life situations. Positive psychology is often used to help heal those with mental disorders or assist in building good thoughts that help people function in society. Simulations are still used today to help train for more real life dilemmas such as jobs, professional work, sports and other seemingly dangerous activities. Below are some examples explained in Psychology Today.

Improvements in basic visual processes

? Improved visual contrast sensitivity. Fifty hours of action video game play (spread over ten to twelve weeks) improved visual contrast sensitivity (the ability to distinguish subtle differences in shades of gray) compared to controls (Li et al., 2009).

? Successful treatment of amblyopia. Amblyopia (also called “lazy eye”) is a disorder arising from early childhood in which one eye becomes essentially non-functional. Li and colleagues (2011) performed experiments in which some adults with this disorder played action video games using only the bad eye (the good eye was covered). Other adults with the disorder did other things with the good eye covered, such as knitting or watching television. The result was that those in the gaming condition showed great improvement—often to normal or near-normal functioning—while those in the other conditions did not. Many in the gaming condition developed 20/20 vision or better in the previously “lazy eye,” and visual attention and stereoscopic vision (ability to coordinate input from the two eyes to see depth) were restored to normal.

Improvements in attention and vigilance

? I mproved spatial attention. Green & Bavelier (2012) found that action video gaming improved performance on the ability to locate, quickly, a target stimulus in a field of distractors--a test that has been found to be a good predictor of driving ability.

? Improved ability to track moving objects in a field of distractors.  Action games improved the ability of children and adults to keep track of a set of moving objects that were visually identical to other moving objects in the visual field (Trick et al., 2005).

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502/cognitive-benefits-playing-video-games

Keep in mind though they are safe ways to play video games, and there are unsafe ways. The key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle is making sure to take breaks every hour of video game playing, whilst maintaining a good schedule to avoid binging on long hours of gaming. A long walk can do wonders for the mind after playing a couple hours of video games.

Most importantly, are some of the amazing things games or video games can do for the mind can be applied daily. In fact, such games like Sudoku can help build memory and pattern matching, and requires little to no storage space on a mobile device to play.

Lastly, we want to enjoy the experience, and when we respect the artists' work we gain a more emotional and significant message thus a larger reward. So do not skip parts or cheat to get through a video game, this will waste the experience and does not give the right perception that the designer has created for us. Patience is key here when we are battling through a challenging game, if we strive through the puzzle, maze, or philosophical concept, we can avoid getting lost in what the story is trying to tell us.