ARE VIDEO GAMES GOOD FOR YOU?

I love to play video games!

Lately I've been playing "Rock Band" and just had a interesting converstion with the staff at the music school where my son takes drum lessons.

The staff agreed that the guitar would never help you learn to play guitar and Mo's drum teacher said that the drum bit would never help you learn the drums but the guitar teachers said that they found the drumming on Rock Band really helped them with their drumming.

They all agreed that it is a good way to learn rhythm, concentration and dexterity though.

My brother is a general in the army and he speaks very highly of skills that people acquire by playing games. The hand eye coordination and quick thinking translate well into soldiering. Soldiers don't get "mulligans" though but most people grasp the difference between real bullets and video bullets pretty quickly.

I have read some reports that video games can be good for kids because of all of the problem solving they require. When I get a chance I'll see if I can dig some of that information back out.

Yes, i've heard that playing video games can make surgeons reduce mistakes and perform operations faster. People should stop looking at all the bad things surrounding video games because I think even GTA can help people learn. Video games are surprisingly very difficult and require thinking, Video games probably require more brain power than TV so it would be better to let children play games rather than TV.

There is even talk of applying multimedia and gaming to the education system, it would surely help. Children's ability to pick up games and learn how to play them may translate into their ability to pick up concepts and learn to use them. Gaming would be a great tool for education. People need to stop whinging about technology, in the past kids would have spent hours collecting stamps now they spend hours playing video games. no one cared about stamp collecting so why should they care about video games. Video games give kids more mental stimulation than stamp collecting

Good for eye-hand coordination.

I'm 47 and confess that I prefer the games rated "E" and "T" to things like GTA which, I assume, is rated "M". I'm not that good at games though and get frustrated with the harder ones. My son is only 7 so I try to minimize his exposure to crime and violence; I don't really want him "playing" at running over prostitutes and stealing their money, stealing cars, etc.

But I do know that players come out with some skills and don't go out running over prostitutes and stealing cars.

Our two favorite games to play are Sly Cooper 2 and most of the Rachet and Clank series. In one you're a criminal and in the other you shoot everything. I know from playing with him though that he develops strategies to try to reach the objective, that he thinks things through, that he analyzes what went wrong on the previous try and how he might better solve the problem on the next try. And most importantly, he's having fun doing it and doesn't realize how much thinking he has to do.

A quick search of "video games bad for you" yielded 499,000,000 hits; "video games good for you" yielded 1,070,000,000 hits.

I don't know if "puzzles" count as video games but the Lady Diane spends hours every day working net puzzles and she enjoys every minute.

I think puzzles count as do board games. (Does Diane do the boxerjam puzzles and games? Too Fun.)

I think (haha) it really all boils down to the fact that most of our thinking is done for us. Playing games, whether it be number, word or video games, requires us to think.

yes I think most games in moderation could be beneficial to children. Is there anyone here who is a strong opponent of video games? If so tell us why.

playing counterstrike for 7 yeARS helped my lazy eye.

is barely even noticeable now.

And mmorpgs in my opinion teach children about economics, markets, working to get stuff they want, and manners.

noone groups with a cockface.

exactly

I love my games, I really can't wait for Far Cry 2 to be released, I find Regular TV just bores me to tears, so it's nice to have another escape from reality every now and then.

however i dont think the parents of this kid would feel the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVmfIUR1DA