What we gamers have long known and scientists have finally confirmed 🙂
Video games are part of our lives, and of course, we gamers have long known that they constantly make us smarter, more beautiful, and better people. Okay, that’s dripping a bit with self-irony, but the following insight isn’t really surprising for us, is it?
In a joint study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute and the Psychiatric University Hospital of Charité (Berlin), an adult group of people was required – and now pay attention! – to play SUPER MARIO 64 every single day for a whopping TWO MONTHS, for HALF an hour. WOW!
“Holla, the forest fairy playing video games!”
![(Wikipedia - Gamer Uploaded by Adrignola) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Wikipedia_-_Gamer.jpg)
– one might almost exclaim and naturally wonders what the outcome of this phenomenal test might have been!? Oh, you should also know that a second group of adults was not allowed to play. 🙁 This grown group is therefore called the control group. Well, anyway. The afflicted hardcore gamer group had to endure half an hour of Super Mario with outdated graphics every day, and guess how this affected their brain functions? That’s right, those who enjoy video games experience certain brain areas ENLARGING. These mentioned areas control among other things memory, spatial orientation, and the fine motor skills of the hands (WoW incredible!). Naturally, the control group was completely mentally stunted after two months without gaming, which, however, was not further mentioned.
So what do the scientists now plan to do with this groundbreaking insight? Well, they hope to find new treatment methods for mental disorders like (MMORPG) schizophrenia or even diseases like, uh……, oh yes, Alzheimer lags.
Alright, those who don’t want to believe this entirely can be forgiven. But the study does actually exist. You can find it here and read at least the abstract (in English). Personally, I’m not so sure whether playing Super Mario for half an hour daily (for two months) is particularly significant, but I admit I only studied biology for three semesters. At least we gamers now have a new excuse for why we MUST pursue our favorite hobby so frequently and intensely.
In this sense,
Your brain training Björn 🙂
