Video games are popular, and advancing technology assures that they aren’t going away anytime soon. There’s an ongoing debate about whether or not video games are bad for you, and since this is a blog, I get to put in my two cents!

Personally, I feel that a moderate amount of gaming is actually good for you. There are games that are designed to help improve your memory, work through logic puzzles, and learn new facts through trivia. There are even games that get you to exercise!

Apart from obvious choices for “positive gaming” experiences, there are also sports games. I’m proud to say I have every Fifa game put out since 1996. In my opinion, sports games don’t just allow you to have fun (which is always great), but they help you with simple things such as reaction times, and vision within the sport. I do believe you can help your understanding of a sport by playing some sort of simulation like a video game.

I also don’t think that playing war games and other violent games are necessarily bad. They are however, quite realistic, and if they bother you, or if you have bad dreams about them, then I’d probably cool it. Otherwise, I see most games as having a “challenge” to them, and a challenge (in any form) seems like a good thing. Gaming definitely introduces a person to stimuli much faster than most other forms of entertainment, and I think it’s leading to kids being able to think faster and navigate electronics like little pro’s. My nephews can pick up a new game and just play it. They learn combinations like it’s their job, and own house in Black-Ops. The world is only going to become more and more digitized; maybe gaming could have surprising uses in the future. (There are already programs that accept donated iPads and use them to teach students.)

I’d also like to add that excessive gaming is probably not a good thing. The constant strain on your eyes can’t be the best thing for you. So, instead of playing Black-Ops for 4 hours a day, try going outside. Take a stroll. Look at a leaf. And try not to disappear into the gaming world…which is easy to do…

Also, check out this blog entry on how much video game time is too much by Dr. Michael Rich, Children’s Hospital Boston’s “Mediatrician”.

-Frankie