Comments on: Five Unexpected Benefits of Gaming https://www.pluggedin.com/blog/5-unexpected-benefits-of-gaming/ Shining a Light on the World of Popular Entertainment Wed, 09 Nov 2022 16:55:34 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 By: Andrew https://www.pluggedin.com/blog/5-unexpected-benefits-of-gaming/#comment-15837 Wed, 09 Nov 2022 16:55:34 +0000 https://www.pluggedin.com/?p=27246#comment-15837 -I think you are missing a big thing that most gamers can not play casually and it lights up the same part of the brain as other addictive substances such as Cocaine and Pornography. Casual gaming may have these benefits but most of my gamer friends are actually quite slow at decision making and so was I when playing heavily. Many gamers become so addicted they have no room for anything else in their lives. This is not something that most kids in particular can just do casually.

Video games and screen use in general has been shown to slow brain development in kids. I would think you would be aware of that at the very least.

https://meetcircle.com/blogs/stories/screen-time-effects-on-the-brain#:~:text=A%20recent%20study%20by%20the,manages%20critical%20thinking%20and%20reasoning.

The small potential benefit do not outweigh the very large negative effects. I say all this as someone who not only likes gaming but has experienced withdraws from not being able to game for only a week.

]]> By: Ashley Penn https://www.pluggedin.com/blog/5-unexpected-benefits-of-gaming/#comment-15817 Tue, 08 Nov 2022 19:49:28 +0000 https://www.pluggedin.com/?p=27246#comment-15817 We’ve actually used Minecraft for homeschool projects. We’re studying ancient Egypt right now and I challenged my 9 year old to build a pyramid based on the diagrams in our textbook. He didn’t disappoint. It’s got a treasure gallery, a burial chamber, and even some hidden rooms and secret traps.

I also ended up having an almost year-long theological conversation with a friend of mine as we played through Persona 5 Royal together. It’s definitely NOT a game for children, but we spent a lot of time discussing themes in the game like justice vs vengeance, the importance of absolute truth, the problem and promise of suffering, safe slavery vs dangerous liberty, and the power of repentance and redemption. We were only able to play on weekends because of our schedules, which is why it took a year to finish, but those were some of the deepest and most productive discussions we’ve ever had.

]]>