Video Games aren’t just for Kids

Many Adults Play Often for Stress Release – & HR Should Embrace this Trend…

Over the years, I’ve run HR departments for a few start-up companies as well as interviewed dozens of candidates for myriad positions in marketing, sales and engineering. One of the questions I like to ask people during interviews is what they like to do in their leisure time, since that helps define them a bit. (After all – one does spend most of their waking hours with their colleagues – good to get to know them.) A great many of them replied that they like to play video games as an escape, which I thought was fine in moderation. As an armchair psychologist, I got to wondering what effects video games have on people; turns out most of the news is good…

There are cognitive benefits to playing video games – improved basic mental abilities among them. Playing action video games that requires players to move rapidly, keep track of multiple items, deal with a volume of information and make split-second decisions; leads to improvements in basic visual processes, attention and vigilance and executive functioning (allocation of resources). Other positive mental results include improved ability to engage in multi-tasking, increased mental flexibility, and reversing mental decline that accompanies aging (from PsychologyToday.com/blog).

So, what does this mean in the workplace? Studies from ‘The Journal of Play’ indicate that video games may be effective teaching tools, as well as beneficial in the workplace – improving job-related skills. For instance, jobs that require good eye-hand coordination, focused attention, excellent working memory, and quick decision-making skills all benefit from experience with video games. In fact, in one study, surgical and aircraft piloting skills were immensely improved through video game experience.

Playing video games has also changed long-thought beliefs on people’s cognitive abilities as they age. Until fairly recently, psychologists believed that people’s ‘basic building blocks of intelligence’ were predetermined by one’s genes. Exposure to the effects of video games has revealed that the brain is far more ‘moldable’ than previously thought. ‘It’s also interesting to note that video games appear to build these components of intelligence faster and more efficiently than any other intervention anyone has devised.’

Common fears about video games, especially from parents of young players, include social isolation, obesity and violence. Turns out evidence points to the many positive effects of improved logical, literary, executive and even social skills, as players often play games in teams, and communicate to reach objectives. So pick up that controller for better mental health – just be sure to take the occasional break to visit the real world and get some exercise…