Games That Have Been Shown to Benefit Gamers' Health

This updated guide examines Games That Have Been Shown to Benefit Gamers' Health and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

1. Tetris enhances eyesight

Vision impairment is a condition in which the eyes do not work together, causing the person with the disability to lose depth perception.

McGill University scientists have found an effective cure for this disease is Tetris, a popular puzzle game.

Scientist Robert Hess and his team created a unique set of glasses to trick their eyes into making them work and work in tandem. Specifically, each side of the glasses will display different game images. One eye sees only the falling blocks and lies at the bottom, while the other eye sees only falling blocks.

Results of an experiment with some adults with vision impairment after wearing these glasses and playing Tetris showed that their eyesight improved significantly.

2. Super Mario 64 brain development

Gamers have different brain structures than normal people, this is the result of research by Berlin's Max Planck Human Development Institute.

The researchers asked 23 adults to play a copy of Super Mario 64 at least half an hour a day, for two months. Compared to the non-gaming group, the researchers found that the brains of these players grew bigger. Specifically, brain development takes place in areas that monitor functions related to memory and spatial awareness, including the right hippocampus, right prefrontal cortex and cerebellum.

3. Medal of Honor improves visual adaptation

A test by the University of Rochester's Center for Visual Sciences found that the group of gamers dominated the visual tests (determining the location, number, color and order of appearance of the object), compared to for people who don't play games.

In another test, non-gaming people were assigned to play one of two games, Medal of Honor or Tetris one hour a day. The results showed that the action game MoH helps improve the visual better than Tetris.

4. Wii Sports is good for surgeons

Dr. Gregorio Patrizi at the University of Rome conducted a new study on two first and second year anatomy group, each consisting of 21 people. The first group was asked to play Wii Tennis, Wii Table Tennis or High Altitude Battle 1 hour a day, 5 days a week, lasting for 1 month. The second group didn't play any games.

After a month, the gaming team became more adept at controlling the device during a simulation surgery. In addition, the healing ability of this group is also significantly improved.

5. Play Portal 2 brain training

Researchers at the University of Floria conducted a test to contrast the results between the Lumosity brain training program and the game Portal 2.

77 people were randomly assigned to 2 groups to participate in this trial. The first group spent 8 hours brain training on Lumosity program. The second group spent the same time playing Portal 2. Afterwards, both groups made a questionnaire to assess cognitive ability, problem solving and perseverance.

As a result, group 2 won, which showed that Portal 2 improved the participants' brain ability better than Lumosity.