Home video gaming systems have been around for decades. Older generations may remember home console gaming systems such as Atari, ColecoVision, or even IntelleVision. Parents of the 1980’s were equally concerned about the dangers of playing video games as they are today. What many critics of video games don’t appreciate is the enormous potential these games have in developing optimal hand / eye coordination, endurance, and focus for careers that will depend on these key characteristics for success and survival. Robotic surgery, radiology, underwater or even future planetary navigation, are but a few of the examples of careers where its success is directly proportional to how well the users hand eye coordination and focus is.
The future will undoubtedly continue to bring us advances in technology, and with these advances, we will rely less on manual labor and more on robotic and controller-assisted equipment to complete the surgeries, remove the cancers, or even read the imaging exams that check to see if a patient has cancer.
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‘The Imperial Animal’ by Tyler and Fox, raises an interesting fact regarding human genetics and how we evolve naturally, as supported by Darwin’s theory of evolution. Despite human interference, whether intentional or not, specific genes have a higher likelihood of continuing on thru generations as long as it helps the animal or species survive. In other words, even by playing video games, this action alone can ultimately influence or change our DNA in a way that helps us get even better at video gaming, while at the same time preserving those genes that improves our fitness and survival. Tyler and Fox discuss our evolutionary past and how our DNA can provide a look into what life was like at that time, what are challenges were, and the DNA mutations that are supposed to help us deal with what the future brings.
Evidence supports that the human genome responds quickly to stimuli and can evolve its DNA within a matter of decades. Considering that video games have been around for close to 50 years, and that two to three generations have passed, we can assume that video games have already started to influence the evolution of human genetics to benefit our survival.
Jane McGonical, is a game designer who presented a TED talk in 2010 on the topic, ‘Gaming Can Make a Better World’. Jane supports increasing the amount of hours playing video games, to “solve the world problems such as hunger, climate change, and obesity”. Jane recognizes the positive implications that are gained through playing video games. Although her focus is on how large-scale world problems may be solved, we can apply her rationale in developing player’s hand/eye coordination and focus to ultimately produce highly effective robotic surgeons, navigators, or ballistic missile operators. Today’s generation likely has a few sets of DNA mutations altered, or evolved, as a direct consequence of decades of playing video games. Keep in mind, these altered genes are supposed to enhance the talent the video gamer has, in this case focus and hand/eye coordination, improvements in focus and hand/eye coordination from playing video games has been extensively studied and proven. Two particular studies, published in the journal, ‘Frontiers in Human Neuroscience’, confirm that playing video games increases sensitivity to contrasting colors, increases hand-eye coordination, improves long-term memory, and visual selective activity (being able to differentiate between important and non-important information within a fast-moving environment).
Taking this talent development alone into consideration, video gaming is an excellent precursor in early development for careers, which require a high level of focus, coordination, and visual selectivity. However, this alone is not the only advantage from playing video games. Jane McGonical goes on to say in her TED Talks discussion that video gamers adopt a sense of optimism as they are used to welcoming challenges and take great pride in succeeding a particular task. Where many would approach difficult circumstances and challenges with an attitude of fear, video gamers rise up to the challenge with a sense of being able to accomplish a difficult but doable task. We have a unique opportunity to harvest these skills early and hone in on developing our next top robotic surgeons, radiologists, or even operators utilizing remote controls, where focus and coordination are critical skills for success.
Some skeptics would argue that video gaming has made kids dumb and out of shape. One study published in the journal, ‘Psychological Science’, claims that kids who played video games after school had lower reading and writing assessment scores compared to kids who did not play video games. This study however, only included kids aged six to 9, and only followed them for 4 months. The study also only included kids who have never owned a video game console and never specified how many hours in a day the kids played video games. It also did not confirm how much homework was needed to reinforce reading and writing, so there are many factors that would have contributed to the lower scores and not video gaming by itself.
Another study, published in the journal, ‘Molecular Psychiatry’, linked playing video games to an increased loss of brain grey matter, which is the area of the brain that processes all of the signals. A loss of grey matter is associated with a greater risk for early dementia in adults. As much as this study correlated video gaming use with deteriorating brain function, they did not look at these children long term to see if the effects continued well into adulthood or not. A counter argument to this claim is a study from Mayo Clinic that confirms how grey matter can be preserved and even increased thru yoga and exercise, so the trials with opposing views was not substantial enough to counter the claims of the positive effects of home video gaming. Another challenge to the claim that video games make kids unhealthy or dumb, makes the false assumption that kids are spending too many hours playing video games and doesn’t take into consideration a moderate amount of video game use. Another study, published in the journal, ‘Frontiers in Human Neuroscience’, confirms that even an hour a day of video games can have significant improvements in brain activity and focus.
Converging points from Fox’s ‘The Imperial Animal’ and Jane McGonical’s perspective on the benefits of video gaming, it can be deduced that there is an untapped and hidden potential in home video game use. As long as we continue to maintain gaming as part of our daily recreational routine, it will continue to fine tune our hand-eye coordination and focus skills while engraining a unique genetic code that favors this type of behavior into our DNA. As mentioned in ‘The Imperial Animal’, our customs and practices drive our evolution. Whether we want to or not, video gaming has been influencing our genetic code and will continue to do so as long as gaming is a significant part of our lives. By embracing this evolutionary journey, we can take advantage of the skill set mother nature is preparing us for and use these skills to further life and survivability for humans.
An example of a career that requires a high amount of focus and a meticulous use of the hands and eyes is robotic surgery. For any traditional surgeon that learns to incorporate robotics into a surgery is probably learning the mechanics of control later on in their career. With the incorporation of video game use early on, a doctor or surgeon in training will have an upper hand and potentially better outcomes with future surgeries than if he/she trained later on in his/her career. One National Institute of Health study supports this claim by examining outcomes of laparoscopic surgeries. Laparoscopic surgeries use a tiny video camera fitted into a fiber optic wire, which is controlled by a surgeon remotely. This particular study showed that surgeons who plated for more than three hours per week made 33% fewer errors compared to the surgeons who did not play any video games at all.
Benefits to the medicine field also don’t have to be limited to the hand-eye coordination of the surgeon. Since different imaging machines guide many of the robotic surgeries, video gaming use can also contribute to the success of surgeries that involve imaging equipment, such as the CT or MRI machine. Let’s suppose a surgeon has to remove a cancerous tumor from a patient’s body. The CT machine only displays images in shades of grey and white. The level of success that surgeon has in removing the tumor is directly dependent on how well he/she can see and can cut around the healthy and cancerous margins of the tumor. One particular article posted in the journal, ‘Nature Neuroscience’, supports the benefits video game training can have in improving the surgeon’s ability to distinguish the different shades of grey, or in this case, the borders of the cancerous tumor. So, in essence, playing video games can help doctors save lives.
Any residual concerns of how video games destroy the general emotional well-being of our youths probably hasn’t read the several studies that support the fact that video game in fact influences positive social interactions among those participating in group video game missions. In Jane McGonical’s TED talk, she reports how gamers enhance their social skills by collaborating on a mutual mission and working together to reach that ultimate goal. Whether it be saving the virtual world, a damsel in distress, or eliminating the universe of evil, video gamers work together on a common mission where everyone shares in the success of their labor. An additional study supporting this claim was published in the journal, ‘Frontiers in Psychology’, and confirms that video games have an overall positive effect on an individual’s cognitive and emotional well-being.
Throughout history, video games have played an important part of our lives ever since their introduction several decades ago. The momentum of its popularity would not be deterred, and many families found themselves asking Santa for the next best video game console for their well-behaved girl or boy. Society soon found itself criticizing the side effects of video games, pointing to how it was making kids fat, lazy, and dumb. Through all of the criticism, and fear it would destroy countless generations, we have still seen advances in every sector of the workforce, primarily because of the same technology that brought us video games. If we learned to embrace the potential benefits video games can have on our society, we can learn to have video games work to our advantage in developing highly trained and focused robotic surgeons or radiologists who will work to identify cancers or deformities in patients.
Harvesting the hidden potential video games can contribute to the training of these future professionals will undoubtedly have a positive influence in outcomes years ahead. Our DNA is evolving to prepare us for this journey, and embracing this unique quality will empower us to optimize the benefits of technology and evolution. Think of the lives that can be extended or even saved by the oncologist who is able to identify the specific size of a cancerous piece of tissue that most would be able to see, or the endurance a video game trained surgeon will have in being able to withstand hours of surgery while navigating through a small controller, or even the future expeditions to Mars, which will require an incredible amount of focus and coordination. All of this can be achieved by embracing technology and incorporating a reasonable curriculum which includes your daily dose of a few hours of fun playing video games at home.
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