For many years, those who had a love for online gaming were told that video games rotted the brain and that they wouldn’t lead the individual anywhere in particular.
Of course, too much of a good thing can be bad for you, and while online gaming is fun, it’s important, like anything, to moderate your usage.
However, when it comes to online gaming being bad for your health, it can actually outweigh the negatives with plenty of benefits – especially where brain power is concerned.
So, can online gaming make you smarter? Well, here are several ways in which it benefits your brain.
1. Improves focus and attention
One of the many benefits that online gaming can bring to the table is through cognitive functions. These are skills that we develop from a young age but that are always being improved upon.
Games that require you to pay attention and to focus on key details in order to progress to the next level is something that’s help to have in your general day to day life. Whether that’s in one’s personal life or tackling professional career paths, being able to focus and be attentive are two skills that are highly important to possess.
Online games and action games, in particular, are helpful when it comes to honing your focus, and other games where you need to look at the finer details are great for improving your attention span.
Your attention span is also something that’s often more challenging to improve nowadays, especially with the digital world and the fast-paced world we live in. So any opportunity to improve your attention is worthwhile.
2. Betters your memory
As we get older, our memory is likely to become harder to retain, especially when it comes to the everyday memories being made that can often be less impactful than core memories.
Online gaming provides a benefit to memory because most games come with some sort of ability required to remember something from before. Whether it’s a sequence of events or moves, to knowing what strategy to try next. When you’re looking to improve your memory, online gaming is where it’s at.
Being able to recall things more easily and improve your working memory is definitely something that can be helpful to have. As you get older and the more online games you play, the more effortlessly you’ll be able to tackle the aging memory that gets to us all eventually.
3. Increases strategic thinking
Some games are pretty easy to play and don’t require much in the way of thinking, while others are highly complex and require a certain strategy to beat the level you’re trying to push past.
A pool game, for example, is one that requires some strategy as you figure out what move to make next. Online games provide an opportunity to think more critically, analyzing situations that crop up and how to navigate them successfully.
Being able to plan ahead, anticipate certain outcomes, and make the right decisions in the moment make up all of this strategic thinking that has to happen in order to be successful in the game.
These games are also good for solving problems, especially when you’re stuck at one level or in one particular part of the game that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
4. Better at multitasking
There are many games that will require the individual to manage multiple tasks at once. Over the years of development in gaming, there has been a real shift in how big some of these games have become.
So much so that you could have multiple quests on the go at once, meaning you need to be good at handling multiple quests, whatever they may be and however complex they are.
This sort of skill is great when you translate it to the real world. In your professional role, you might find yourself struggling to balance the spinning plates. However, with a bit more time spent playing games, you might find that you become a better multi-tasker as a result.
5. Improved communications and collaboration
The ability to communicate with others is certainly important and something that’s beneficial to have as a skill.
Not everyone is blessed with a natural ability to talk to others with ease. Some may find it extremely challenging to socialize, whether it be due to anxiety or just a shyness that is part and parcel of their personality.
Improving communication can be done by playing more online games. It removes some of the pressure that in-personal socializing causes. At least by playing online games, you can work on improving your social skills from behind a screen and hopefully transfer them to real-life scenarios when interacting with people in person.
Collaboration is also an important skill, particularly when working as a team in business or in your personal life. Games online allow you to do this whether you prefer to play alone or with friends – or even strangers for that matter.
6. Encourages more creativity
Creativity is an important skill to have and a trait for that matter within your personality. When you have more creativity, you have the ability to think outside of the box and find solutions to life’s problems, whether it be personal or professional.
Some games will encourage the players to explore and experiment with different techniques and strategies in order to beat the game. What this does for players is it helps foster resourcefulness and makes use of those creative bones in your body.
Whether you possess much in the way of creativity or not, it’s definitely something that can benefit you if you’re able to work on it through your online gaming sessions.
7. Better spatial awareness
When you’re playing an online game, you’re often making use of your spatial awareness – or lack of it. One benefit and way that online gaming makes you smarter is through improved vision.
Some of us have 20/20 vision, while others struggle to see so far without the use of glasses or contacts.
With online gaming, you can dramatically improve your spatial awareness, especially when you’re having to navigate a larger space through just a small section that appears on your screen.
As you move about, you’ll likely find your eyes are drawn to spots that would otherwise be ignored and missed. One thing that you’ll notice as you play more and more is that your ability to see things that would have been a blink-and-you ’ll-miss-it moment becomes more possible.
8. Gives you a confidence boost
Last but not least, for online gaming, you should definitely explore the games that will give you that confidence boost. Some people are born naturally confident, while others need to fake it until they make it. Whether you’re one or the other, giving your confidence a little boost now and then can only be a good thing.
Online gaming can certainly make you more confident, whether it’s from chatting to people in the game and outside of it, to feeling more confident in your abilities. From the decisions you make to how you navigate the games, these are all flexes that can end up boosting your ego and making you more confident in yourself as a result.
Online gaming is certainly something to make use of when it comes to boosting your brain power. With that being said, take these tips on board and make use of them to make yourself smarter this year and beyond.
