How Video Games Improve Your Education

Something that a lot of people don't believe, but it's true, is that video games actually bring benefits to people that play them, more specifically to their minds. There is more to these games than pretty graphics, good music and plots that emerge the player in the game's world.

1. Strategic thinking is improved by playing video games. When you play a game, you need to take decisions in advance and plan the next few steps that you're going to take. Playing games constantly allows people to develop their strategic thinking skills and these skills can be applied to real world situations.

2. By playing video games, your problem solving skills are improved. While you can say that about every game out there, video games are proven through studies to be improving the skills of solving problems. Almost every game out there has as a main focus a problem that needs solving in a challenging manner, provoking the player into thinking how to do it. By playing a single game, a player can have anywhere between a couple and a couple of hundred problems that need solving.

3. Eye and hand coordination are improved by video games. To test this, take a game controller and move the character inside the game. Maneuvering a mouse and a game controller ask for the same skills from the player.

4. Taking decisions quickly is something that is facilitated by video games. The impromptu situations is one of the factors that leads to this quality. Wherever you are in a game, you never know what will happen next, which makes it exciting for the player. If players want to win the game, they need to take the best decisions possible on the spot, without much time to think about it.

5. The imagination is stimulated when you play video games. People that argue that video games are bad for people are wrong and are usually limited in their imagination or never tried actually playing a game. One argument of these people is that games provide the things to the mind instead of leaving the mind to imagine things. The same people believe that a Lego set is all a kid needs to grow. We totally disagree with that. What a video game does for the player's imagination is truly great and it encourages him to dream more.

6. Exploration is encouraged in games. In RPG's for example, you need to go and explore the world ahead of you, seeing the unknown and learning about it. Opening a door and not knowing what you will find or the consequences of your actions encourages people to get used to exploring and learning.

7. Exercising the memory is also encouraged by video games. Players need to memorize the terrain, always knowing which way they should head next and what places offer the best rewards or the most challenging enemies.

8. Video games allow people to learn that actions have consequences. Every action taken by a player has a consequence and the player needs to live with it.

9. Endurance, dedication and patience are just a few of the things taught by video games. You can't finish a good game in a single day. The games that are most appreciated will usually take weeks to finish.

Video games offer a lot of possibilities to the mind of those that play them and listed here are just a few of them.