Hank saying "You know what Fortnite is" triggered a memory of serving on a jury last year.... At least five of the witnesses were asked to explain Fortnite in detail to the jury because a couple of them had been playing it during the time of the incident. And they explained it exhaustively. The attorneys kept asking every person to clarify the simplest things like how two people could be playing the game together from different locations. It was seriously 20+ minutes per witness just explaining the experience of playing Fortnite. By the end I think even the 80 year old lady we had on the jury was like "Geez, we get it already!"
I wish there where more games to help people learn science, languages or literally anything. Gaming can be extremely useful to memorize things and understand them deeply.
there's tons of games that do. There are many games that are good for learning science. There's also lots of games that are great for reading. I mean literally D&D is an entire campaign of creative thinking critical thinking along with plenty of reading
@@BoxStudioExecutive Yeah... none of those kids told their teammates to self-terminate or wish some terrible catastrophe on their family because they were a second slow on a heal? I have doubts about this study.
@@BoxStudioExecutive when you flash in front of a Caitlyn ult to save your teammate but die for it and they call you new words you never heard of before :(
@@dwaynebullard5454 I assume this falls into the "exception" group. By this I mean everyone that plays League. I mean those people are chugging salt 24/7 so I think they are a different species LOL
5:50 “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game” - Soren Johnson and Sid Meier, this can be used for good, some gamers are insanely good at optimizing anything, especially seeing how many games are competitive so it just pushes players to learn how to optimize something fast
@@Starcrash6984 I think the linked video, while fascinating and examining a valid issue, represents some of the worst in optimization, we can see much better results when looking at speedruning, or a Zachtronics game.
@@bugdracula1662 True. Speedrunning is only loosely a "community" event, one in which other people don't depend on each other, so such optimization isn't a bad thing. Thus, it isn't universally bad, but should be noted that it isn't universally good, either.
@@Starcrash6984 I would challenge you on the whole speedrunning isn’t a community thing, because it is. Speed runners tend to work together to discover newer, faster ways to beat the game. And tend to communicate their findings with each other often. They also tend to do it with other people around, whether by hanging out with friends while practicing a run or streaming it.
@@saraiknowsit I'm aware of this, but it's not "a community thing" in the way that MMO's are (which was the example discussed in the link I posted). As described, it's not something in which people depend on others to do things right for their own success. When you're "in a guild" or "in a raid", others doing things in a less-than-optimal fashion will ruin your own success, and that's why optimizing isn't always good -- in those scenarios, people will get angry at you for doing things in a less-than-optimal way. I've seen videos on speedrunning, and I agree that -- in some ways -- it is "a community thing". But it wasn't in the way that was relevant to the argument made above.
It got dismissed, mostly because they thought there would be no way in hell anyone would deliberately avoid preventative measures for themselves or go out and deliberately infect others like they did in the game. Interesting how that worked out, eh?
I have memory problems due to PTSD and migraines, and I had never played video games until I met my current partner in 2021. He introduced me to Skyrim, and I can definitely confirm that it has helped my memory moving forward. It's still not perfect, but I can tell a difference!
I should see if there are any kinds of games for my mom then. She has memory problems from a few different reasons but she only really does solitair on her phone. I know she isn't into fantasy games or fps games so finding something she would actually want to do would be a challenge
@@batmoonwarlord I'd say the French would be upset with you for mislabelling one of their most known bread dishes but they'd probably just throw up the white flag
It is... Difficult. I was tasked as a middle schooler with teaching Wii bowling to residents of a nursing home, and some ppl are definitely more with it than others. Most annoying thing tho was having to shout much of the instructions
@@Just_Sara I imagine you had more patience than I did then 😂 Gaming is lovely that way- I think we think of play as a kid thing bc kids do it a lot to learn and grow, but it can be just as fun for adults
When I was around 3 years old my grandfather introduced me to play 4 in a row on the commodore64 and also started to challenge me to the boardgame Othello to play against all kinds of family members and looking back as an adult I now see that what he was trying to teach me from a young age was to think before you act and I think it had the happy accident of mitigating my ADHD because I am not very impulsive. When I was around 7 I noticed my peers short term memory were better than mine so I near obsessively played memory with every kid and adult that agreed to it and now as an adult I have the strongest memory of all my friends, including shopping lists. Super Mario taught me to cope with my emotions and self soothe because ragequitting meant I had nothing else to do so I had to learn to calm down and keep trying... paper boy pissed me off to no end but I still played it so much and like the other examples I have so much patience now that people have jokingly called me Buddha. Social games like MMORPG made me better at communication and not being so scared of conflict and the grind to gain an item you want just taught so much grit. I think the only games I've played a lot that didn't really bring any perk were most relax games, they just helped unwind from stress.
Driver 2 on the OG Playstation taught be how to drive, and be totally fine when my car slides on ice. I was used to the out-of-control driving feeling before I even got behind the wheel. 😂
I'm a UX Researcher with a BS and MS in Game/Software Design, currently pursuing my Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction. Doing science on, in, and about games is all I think about, which is probably why this found me so fast through the algorithm. I would like to imagine that people who aren't involved on my level are starting to have some serious interest in this kind of stuff, though! Great content either way!
As a player and parent it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Trade and market dynamics were particularly useful things to have an experiential knowledge of in my current occupation. Knowing that you can make a lot of money from the “laziness” of others. Learning these kinda big picture concepts is so much more engaging in a game setting.
Pikmin is a great series for learning specific skills. In the Pikmin series, you play as a Captain and command up to 100 little colorful plant creatures, and you throw/lead them to attack enemies, pick up objects, and overcome obstacles. Each type of Pikmin has different abilities that you need to remember and use carefully to accomplish your goals. The game has a day cycle, where you play 1 day at a time (roughly 15 minutes long) and at sunset the day ends. Usually there's some kind of penalty if you waste too many days, leading to your untimely demise, so you need to plan your day to collect the key items you need, keep track of your Pikmin, multitask to maximize efficiency throughout each day, and avoid too many losses. It's an excellent game for learning time management, resource management, leadership skills, and simply appreciating the time we have in life.
Regarding gaming and surgery, my local hospital has a good example. The hospital purchased a deVinci, but had no surgeons trained to use it. One surgeon figured that since she always beat her brothers when playing video games, she'd give it a shot and asked to be trained. She can now do twice as many surgeries in the same amount of time as anyone else in the local area on the deVinci. The hospital staff consider her a rock star.
This is so amazing!! I love how I am listening to this video while playing Pokémon. I love how video games are helping out the scientific world in a positive way.
There's also the Science Arcade game in Borderlands 3 that is used to sequence ribosomal RNA! As of the end of 2020, players had completed over 63 million puzzles and provide a ton of data to scientific research!
My husband used, and still does, gaming to help regain eye hand coordination after a stroke. Both of us use it now for mental exercise. World of Warcraft FTW.
Happy to see more research on video games and the benefits. I used my experience playing Mario Kart for driving, even used the Wii version to help me learn to automatically move the steering wheel the correct way when driving backwards for a driving test. I feel like my memory is pretty good too because when I replay games I haven't played for years, I still know where things are and can follow what to do. I have so many games memorized now, and it feels nice and nostalgic when I can find all of the things. I'd love to see more that use different culture to teach about that, and stuff for languages as others have mentioned. Learning geology and chemistry stuff would be really cool too. I enjoy the games where you adventure but also farm ingredients to make things.
Truth be told, playing Heists in GTA Online has taught me to try to communicate with my teammates and put my trust in them, while at the same time not holding them down and do the best I can. That's perhaps what made me a little more open to helping people given me being such an introvert.
"Nuerons vastly prefer predictable stimulation" and "feedback is clear to making it happen" are two very crucial points to think about in the human brain and how we operate. We want some form of predictability in our lives, and its difficult to change anything unless proper feedback is given as a result.
Years ago the company I was at had the hardest time getting people trained in overhead cranes - those 200+ ton cranes. After about 10 people, with higher seniority than me failed - each after a week of training - I was sent up. After about 2 hours I was on my own. Course it took me 2 months to fully master, but yeah, operating most 'complex' equipment is similar to video games. I also learned how to do the speed bag by treating my body like a video game interface.
a while ago one of my friends told me about an fda-approved video game designed for young kids with ADHD, and I think it’s pretty cool that it exists! I know that some parents are hesitant regarding certain ADHD treatments (namely stimulant drugs) both because of potential side affects, potential for misuse, the weird stigma that kinda exists regarding stimulants, etc. so I’m glad that this unique kind of option exists.
I’ve seen a very short demo of this game! It was interesting. The video game I saw was a first-person shooter flying a plane over a river, shooting floating objects. Then after 2 or 3 seconds, the background changes to a desert scene. All the objects / plane / trajectory are the same, but only the LOOK of everything has changed. The gameplay continues uninterrupted. I suppose it trains you to keep focused. Very nice.
UW represent!!! I'm a research scientist at the University of Washington and also did undergrad here (and am a big fan of gaming) so I was excited to see foldit represented!
As a gamer AND as someone who likes to tinker with electronics, I love love love this video! 🖤 I seriously learned sooooo much in this one sitting. Please keep up the great work!
Funny quick story. I picked up Super Mario Bros. after decades without playing. I lost 9 lives on world 1-1. But then immediately remembered where the Warp Zone on 1-2 was the moment I got there.
I believe one of my professors is on the uk research team for the pong project. I’m studying forensic biology and pathology. This channel along with crash course saving my career!
As a person whos screwing with Minecraft for like 10 years over - games provides one hell of a motivation for somebody to learn something from it if done correctly, like you know, Minecraft literally become the reason why i know English, and the fact that it has *an ungodly amount* of mods (Industrial Craft 2, Silent gems, Gregtech, Big Reactors and thousands more) - its just a matter of time before your kid starts to appreciate like nuclear physics or chemistry, the game is, by all means, a true sandbox for nearly everything.
Decided to make a game today with a lot of Science and Ancient Egyptian mythology incorporated into story focused platformer. Guess this is my sign to go through with making it. : )
Like assassins creed origins? Not so much science, bu it's a great game that takes place in ancient Egypt and you're a medjay. it was pretty fun. I'm playing assassins Creed Odyssey atm, I'm a spartan now. Haha, I love video games.
@@Lorenzo_That_Vegan_Dad You're an astronaut that goes and explores planets. You start off in a version of Ancient Egypt that is futuristic aesthetic and is quite technological. The priests are steeped in occultism & science. There'll be a lot of chemistry, rocket science, and more.
@@TravisLee33 We have Starfield coming out this year. That is going to be a game where you can literally fly from planet to planet. But a cyberpunk Egyptian world sounds awesome.
So, me personally, I gave up shooter games, because I was angry very suddenly, very easy. Stopped playing them, and now I feel fine. Lots of people don't have the ability to see that in themself even as they record themself destroying things.
2:55 "Maybe your next company retreat should involve a team-building exercise with flamethrowers and crossbows on Fortnite" My last job (Best Buy, American consumer electronics store) actually did this, though not with Fortnite, cuz we were adults. But yeah, we had a monthly Game-night for team-building, it was pretty awesome.
I played super Mario bros with my 3 other younger siblings. My parents told me recently that a big reason why they let us play that game so much was that it actually improved our relationships and communication skills. Yes, maybe in the game, my sister would get so frustrated that I accidentally took her power, but then I think we learned through experience that everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It taught forgiveness, patience, communication, teamwork, leadership, problem solving, creativity, self awareness(the amount of times I had to avoid people stepping on my head) kindness and respect… all in a world that had little consequence. Now, Despite being in our 20’s, When visiting home for a period of time, we still fire up the old wii, and get through a world or two for the night.
The community may not be that great and might encourage some less-than-ideal personality traits, but at least they do get to learn how to work with a team and communicate effectively to achieve a specific goal.
When I was around the age of 14 give or take I got my hands on Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquillity. Making money in that game was hard and spending it was easy just like in life. I started to make a goal of what to save, for instance 5,000G and then not let myself spend below that until I reached the new goal like 10,000G. So say I wanted to buy a new house upgrade that cost 12,000g in the game and I didn't want to go below 10,000G. I would save until I have 22,000G and then buy it. And then the cycle would continue with me making higher goals not to fall past when purchasing anything. I learned really quickly how to save money through that game alone and to this day it sticks!
0:18 There were other video games before 1958 eg Bertie the Brain (1950) and Nim (1951). The key difference is Tennis for Two was intended solely for entertainment rather than research or tech demos, but the previous video games were just as novel and entertaining to the lucky first gamers.
I think when Hank says scientists are studying the top Foldit players to understand how they solve puzzles, that's a reference to my work! Uhh, AMA I guess? Also thanks SciShow!
Cool to learn about the humans playing the protein folding game. I knew about AlphaFold, but I think the fact that AI achievements seem to be coming along in leaps and bounds can distract from the awesome stuff our human brains can do if we figure out the right way to frame a problem.
0:32 NSLS II under construction. Center for Functional Nanomaterials (metamaterial science) just down the street to the left there. NSLS I north of that.
0:30 Tennis for two was one of the first video games, but not the very first. BNL itself will tell you that Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle R. Mann patented the “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device" in 1948, U.S. Patent 2455992. Tennis for Two was the first one to generate standing-room only access though.
I was diagnosed as dyslexic when I was 7. Before dyspraxia was considered. It was just known that my dyslexia impacted my coordination. My doctor told my mom to have me play Breakout every day and track my score to work on improving my hand eye coordination. And yes, Breakout was still a commonly played game. Atari was basically what there was. I'm that old. But it was used even then to help with some issues, though not formally.
When I was a chemist a crime lab in the mid 70's we had a PDP-11 running our JOEL electron microscope with X-ray EDS. We occasionally played an early Asteroids type game that had a ship that calculated the orbits around the sun. It was on a FOUR INCH screen! The computer on our Finnegan GC-MS was so primitive we had to put in the manually enter the boot code if the system completely shut down . No games on this one, there wasn't even a screen, all communication was in printouts! When studying FORTRAN in college we had to carry around big boxes on Hollerith cards. I used to joke that you could always tell if a student did programming because one arm was stretched longer than the other from toting boxes of cards across campus ;-)
Hank, I can't believe you're talking about useful games but didn't even mention puzzle games with stories, like detective/mystery games, from companies like Haiku, Five BN Games, Domini Games, Friendly Fox... Those are wonderful for memory, reading, using logic (or illogic, lol) etc. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM!
Borderlands Science also comes to mind here. BL3 has an in-game block puzzle mini game whose block patterns are built from actual RNA segments. The way players sequence the blocks help scientists compare the genomes of various gut microbes.
It's also an online game where you have to work with other people to achieve a goal, this means that the kids who play it are also learning social skills that will help them in other aspects of life. I wonder if there should be a study of kids who regularly play online games and how it affects their development of social skills vs kids that didn't.
Teaching dish neurons to learn the same way we teach virtual neural networks is good reassurance that we're approaching NNs and AIs in the right way. NNs on a computer receive inputs and turn those into outputs, and the nets improve performance by receiving positive and negative reinforcement based on a reward function. If the same tricks work with physical neurons for small-scale applications like game-playing AIs that means we're on the right path to scale virtual neural networks to eventually have general intelligence, like a full human brain has!
My first introduction into the world wide web was through Folderol, which computed protein folding by using screensaving time in multiple computers which had downloaded Folderol's screensaver. It was many years after I had used Internet through menus and phone logging in in the '80's.
That first study's researchers like "alright, so we'll take one group of kids and let them play their favorite video game ever, then we'll take this other group and have them play something dumb like pinball, then we'll ask which group would volunteer their time again." Pretty sure that's not measuring what you're wanting it to measure
Not being English my native language, I learned this language by playing videogames back in my days because back then there was no setup to change language on most of them. And I was eager to understand the meaning behind the words of every character; in Final Fantasy 3 for example in get to know Kefka's motivation.
I inherited my Great Grandma's NES recently. She got it in the late 1900s to help slow down her Alzheimer's. She didn't move to a home until the early 2000s. Now it sits on a legacy shelf with an original pressing of LOZ in it lol
I have played Pong using just my face; I once tested an adaptive device for disabled people that used electromyography and EEG signals for typing and other tasks on a computer, and one task was playing Pong using my facial muscles.
I have noticed that since I have been playing Mario Cart again, my reaction time has improved real world. Particularly when driving 🤓 I feel sharper mentally. Highly recommend games to the 50+ crowd 💯
The problem I have with some of the studies sited is that the effects of the play are measured minutes or hours and at most days after the test is taken. This isn't really doing much more than "push polling" the results of your study. There needs to be a much longer prolonged observation of the effects of video games (or really any other human activity) to come to a reasonable conclusion on the effects of the activity on society; similar to the VR study on surgeons reviewed here.
only if you write down what you study if you just play a game you arnt a scientist if you play a game and produce a paper studying an aspect of the game, maybe everyone check out my white paper _________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | |________________|
When I was in Army boot camp a video simulator was used to help recruits learn how to aim and shoot their rifles properly in order to knock down targets on the rifle range.
Video Request: The Storegga Slide, and the resulting tsunami. Nobody is talking about it, and today was the first day I heard about it! Seems like a important geological event that nobody learns about. Thanks!
Years ago, my dad did the 'early retirement' thing, and rapidly began to lose cognitive ability - I have a horror of being there. I'm now 64, and in my day job I write code - my mission is never to retire unless I become to stupid to do that job. My research, if you will, leads me to believe that if I keep scraping the rust off my brain every day by doing what I do, said brain will keep working reasonably well. Of course, if that strategy fails, I'll be too gaga to let you know...
me and my friends playing vermintide 2 actively tests our teamwork, reaction speed, pattern recognition, and forward-thinking strategizing. We may not be exercising our bodies, but our minds are a fine-tipped spear.
On the violent videogame thing, I think part of the discussion that gets overlooked is people's ability to differentiate fact from fiction. I doubt a lot of people are going to immediately assume it is okay to be swinging an ax or something around in public because of a game, book, movie, or what have you. Each game and player should be viewed on an individual basis. Who is playing? What is the story and context of the game? Generalizations can only do so much, and relying on generalizations is often a hinderance.
What tested my memory was trying to beat the original Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation in 2 hours (yes there have been faster times but that’s the fastest I could beat it). I would need to memorize exactly where to go and which puzzles to do in order to minimize backtracking. Also would need to know how to avoid enemies and where to get the best weapons and ammunition. Any brain fart, could easily waste 30 minutes of time. 😅
The thing about videogames that blew my mind the most is that playing Tetris shortly after a traumatic event seems to be able to severely lessen the likelyhood of PTSD and even if PTSD develops, the effects are said to be dramatically lessened by playing Tetris.
I really really wish there were like chemistry games, like a lab simulator or something. Where you have to clean up and do everything a normal lab tech does
It's funny how the commercial flop Wii U and Kinect end up in the hands of researchers and engineers because the tech underneath it is genuinely great it just didn't end up translating as well into mass market appeal in the original context as it should have.
I’m surprised y’all didn’t cover the Corrupted Blood incident in World of Warcraft. Epidemiologists have looked to it pre-COVID as a way to model human behavior in response to pandemics. Spoiler alert: humans never really changed.
I know playing FFXIV and other games help keep my critical thinking, hand-eye-cordination, reaction times, snap judgement and probably many other skills sharp, as well as my memory, since many of the ones I play require memorizations of lots of mechanics and patterns.
I remember reading something years ago about how video game can help people with dyslexia learn to read better and help them do better in life. This can make sense if they are interested in or care about the story because they would read all the stuff as they play. As a dyslexic person, I skip anything that I have to read. Lol.
I'd love to know what parts of the brain are lighting up when someone playing a fighting game when they actually know what they're doing. There's so many different things you think about in a given second when you're playing something like Tekken.
When I was a kid, my mom signed me up for this ADHD testing and research thing... I don't remember the science details because I was like 12 at the time, but TLDR: they put these little electrodes on my head and I played video games WITH MY BRAIN. It didn't help my ADHD much, but it sure was fascinating!!
I had a pretty cool training, where I had the same neurons that were connected to a video player playing a film. I watched things like Guardians of the galaxy, an assortment of documentaries, penguins of madagascar and a few other films and every time my measured focus went below a certain threshold the film just stopped until I refocused again. And my therapist adjusted that threshold constantly over the film duration. Its great for learning how loosing focus feels like and what you can effectively do to regain it. Instant feedback really helps with the learning process
Did anyone check how many of these studies were paid for by video game industry trade groups? We're talking about a 20 billion dollar industry, and like the tobacco and oil industries before them, they're motivated by profit. There's profit in throwing a few bucks at a hungry university researcher, and scientists who produce positive results are likely to get more of that funding. For example, why didn't the Fortnite study compare non-violent cooperative games with Fortnite cooperative mode? What if it's entirely the cooperative aspect that confers benefits, and what if the cooperative benefits are far less when it's in a violent vs nonviolent game? When you only compare cooperative violent games with non-cooperative nonviolent games, you obscure what's really going on. The surgery and hand-eye coordination study has a similar problem to old studies touting the benefits of video games in training fighter pilots. The question is, what problem does this solve? Is our healthcare crisis in any way tied to a shortage of surgeons? I made several attempts to find any mention of this, and in every list of the most in-demand specialties, surgeons don't crack the top 10. The US probably has a glut of doctors overall, and there's some evidence too many med students choose surgery over specialties that we really need more of. Even when it comes to training surgeons, is hand-eye coordination an issue? Looking at evidence of what it takes to become a surgeon, and what the greatest obstacles in training are, the challenges are study and memory skills, mental focus, emotional stability, good judgement, managing long hours and stress. No mention of butter fingers being the main deal breaker. The fighter pilot claims are the same: sure pilots have to have quick reflexes and precise hand-eye-coordination, but the thing that makes it hard to find good pilots is their decision making ability. Like surgery, it requires managing overwhelming quantities of information and focusing on what's important to make the right decisions in real time. Perhaps some video games simulate these kinds of stresses and develop them, but that remains to be seen. Touting hand-eye coordination without pointing out that it's beside the point is rather irrelevant. With couple generations of kids growing up steeped in video games, we ought to be enjoying a golden age of brilliant surgeons, and fighter pilots too. There ought to be evidence of that. Which is similar to the socialization "benefits" of Fortnite. What problem does this solve? Does the survey where kids would -- in theory -- donate more money bear out? Did they? Do they donate more as adults? Is lack of charitable donation a problem? Not in the US; it's perhaps the most generous country in the world, yet has some of the worst inequality among wealthy nations. Educationally, the US suffers from poor math and science skills, in inadequate reading and research skills. Socialization is nice and all, but is that really a problem? The number of hours playing video games has ballooned in recent decades, yet the rate of charitable giving and volunteering hasn't increased; it has gone down: news.gallup.com/poll/310880/percentage-americans-donating-charity-new-low.aspx The big science question here is why this type of study that measures prosocial behaviors with hypothetical donation questions doesn't correlate with reality. I have nothing against video games. I don't think they're harmful. But I could say the same about canned soup, and if Campbell's Soup was touting research claiming alphabet soup is the solution to the "problem" of teaching kids which letter is which, I'd have questions. Lots of questions.
With what he explained about the cultured neurons playing pong I wonder if we will be able to start incorporating them into CPUs. Making a brain electronic instead of an electric brain.
It will be interesting to see what happens at retirement homes in a few years, when people who live there have actually grown up as gamers in the 80s and after.
When my *40-year-old son was five, I could not hold a candle to his Mario game, *SNES. Sometimes Mario fails as a memorization aid. I am proof, says this 60yro. * Stargate Universe, Episode 1 check it out.
Hank saying "You know what Fortnite is" triggered a memory of serving on a jury last year.... At least five of the witnesses were asked to explain Fortnite in detail to the jury because a couple of them had been playing it during the time of the incident. And they explained it exhaustively. The attorneys kept asking every person to clarify the simplest things like how two people could be playing the game together from different locations. It was seriously 20+ minutes per witness just explaining the experience of playing Fortnite. By the end I think even the 80 year old lady we had on the jury was like "Geez, we get it already!"
What kind of legal case was that?
Without getting too specific, it was an abuse case. Some of the witnesses were playing Fortnite at the time, some at the location and some elsewhere.
I just... How playing the same game? I mean... The internet in general works like that? Phones work like that??
Oh my, when I had jury duty they didn't even showed us the bullied tragetory xD
I love how ballsy really old people can be because they just don't care anymore. Too be fair, their time is very valuable for them
I wish there where more games to help people learn science, languages or literally anything. Gaming can be extremely useful to memorize things and understand them deeply.
there's tons of games that do. There are many games that are good for learning science. There's also lots of games that are great for reading. I mean literally D&D is an entire campaign of creative thinking critical thinking along with plenty of reading
Hard part is hiding that to make it fun or they wont play. Advertising a game to make you smarter wont work at all
Remember those Nintendo Brain games?
there are, they're just not interesting enough to hold someone's attention.
That's why the learning has to be seamless.
For the cooperative game study I'm surprised they didn't have that one person that just walks around your dying body instead of healing you.
That person might be thinking the good for all.
What's the point of healing the teammate if the teammate is heading towards the danger
They clearly didn't include League of Legends in their study of "co-operative" gaming
@@BoxStudioExecutive Yeah... none of those kids told their teammates to self-terminate or wish some terrible catastrophe on their family because they were a second slow on a heal? I have doubts about this study.
@@BoxStudioExecutive when you flash in front of a Caitlyn ult to save your teammate but die for it and they call you new words you never heard of before :(
@@dwaynebullard5454 I assume this falls into the "exception" group. By this I mean everyone that plays League. I mean those people are chugging salt 24/7 so I think they are a different species LOL
My surgeon - with 35 years experience in laparoscopic surgery - sometimes says he was blessed with "Nintendo hands."
Nurse: “are you ready doctor?”
Doctor: opens locked briefcase to remove Nintendo Power Glove. “Ready”
5:50 “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game” - Soren Johnson and Sid Meier, this can be used for good, some gamers are insanely good at optimizing anything, especially seeing how many games are competitive so it just pushes players to learn how to optimize something fast
You and I might have a different definition of "used for good" as it relates to "optimizing". th-cam.com/video/BKP1I7IocYU/w-d-xo.html
@@Starcrash6984 I think the linked video, while fascinating and examining a valid issue, represents some of the worst in optimization, we can see much better results when looking at speedruning, or a Zachtronics game.
@@bugdracula1662 True. Speedrunning is only loosely a "community" event, one in which other people don't depend on each other, so such optimization isn't a bad thing. Thus, it isn't universally bad, but should be noted that it isn't universally good, either.
@@Starcrash6984 I would challenge you on the whole speedrunning isn’t a community thing, because it is. Speed runners tend to work together to discover newer, faster ways to beat the game. And tend to communicate their findings with each other often. They also tend to do it with other people around, whether by hanging out with friends while practicing a run or streaming it.
@@saraiknowsit I'm aware of this, but it's not "a community thing" in the way that MMO's are (which was the example discussed in the link I posted). As described, it's not something in which people depend on others to do things right for their own success. When you're "in a guild" or "in a raid", others doing things in a less-than-optimal fashion will ruin your own success, and that's why optimizing isn't always good -- in those scenarios, people will get angry at you for doing things in a less-than-optimal way.
I've seen videos on speedrunning, and I agree that -- in some ways -- it is "a community thing". But it wasn't in the way that was relevant to the argument made above.
What about Epidemiologists using World of Warcraft’s Blood Plague event to try and predict how people and viruses could interact during a pandemic?
Too sci-fi.
i think Extra Credit did a video on that years ago. i recommend a word search for that topic alone.
Sci Guys did an episode on that.
It got dismissed, mostly because they thought there would be no way in hell anyone would deliberately avoid preventative measures for themselves or go out and deliberately infect others like they did in the game.
Interesting how that worked out, eh?
Well, there is a lot of real world data…
I have memory problems due to PTSD and migraines, and I had never played video games until I met my current partner in 2021. He introduced me to Skyrim, and I can definitely confirm that it has helped my memory moving forward. It's still not perfect, but I can tell a difference!
Skyrim helped you think more clearly? I guess you could say it’s good… you’re finally awake.
@@TheWretchedOwl wtf I didn't expect that lol 😅 here's a sweet roll 🥐
I should see if there are any kinds of games for my mom then. She has memory problems from a few different reasons but she only really does solitair on her phone. I know she isn't into fantasy games or fps games so finding something she would actually want to do would be a challenge
@@batmoonwarlord I'd say the French would be upset with you for mislabelling one of their most known bread dishes but they'd probably just throw up the white flag
So happy to hear that! Wishing you fun times and a pleasant recovery, as much as that can be :)
I admire the patience of those people who are tasked with explaining a video game to the elderly
It is... Difficult. I was tasked as a middle schooler with teaching Wii bowling to residents of a nursing home, and some ppl are definitely more with it than others. Most annoying thing tho was having to shout much of the instructions
probally looked like this: th-cam.com/users/shortsGyoyZxA0Dmw
@@StonedtotheBones13 Same, but I taught them when I was an adult. Fun thing is, some of them get just as into it as younger people do. :)
@@Just_Sara I imagine you had more patience than I did then 😂 Gaming is lovely that way- I think we think of play as a kid thing bc kids do it a lot to learn and grow, but it can be just as fun for adults
When I was around 3 years old my grandfather introduced me to play 4 in a row on the commodore64 and also started to challenge me to the boardgame Othello to play against all kinds of family members and looking back as an adult I now see that what he was trying to teach me from a young age was to think before you act and I think it had the happy accident of mitigating my ADHD because I am not very impulsive. When I was around 7 I noticed my peers short term memory were better than mine so I near obsessively played memory with every kid and adult that agreed to it and now as an adult I have the strongest memory of all my friends, including shopping lists. Super Mario taught me to cope with my emotions and self soothe because ragequitting meant I had nothing else to do so I had to learn to calm down and keep trying... paper boy pissed me off to no end but I still played it so much and like the other examples I have so much patience now that people have jokingly called me Buddha. Social games like MMORPG made me better at communication and not being so scared of conflict and the grind to gain an item you want just taught so much grit. I think the only games I've played a lot that didn't really bring any perk were most relax games, they just helped unwind from stress.
Driver 2 on the OG Playstation taught be how to drive, and be totally fine when my car slides on ice. I was used to the out-of-control driving feeling before I even got behind the wheel. 😂
I'm a UX Researcher with a BS and MS in Game/Software Design, currently pursuing my Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction. Doing science on, in, and about games is all I think about, which is probably why this found me so fast through the algorithm. I would like to imagine that people who aren't involved on my level are starting to have some serious interest in this kind of stuff, though! Great content either way!
As a player and parent it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Trade and market dynamics were particularly useful things to have an experiential knowledge of in my current occupation. Knowing that you can make a lot of money from the “laziness” of others. Learning these kinda big picture concepts is so much more engaging in a game setting.
Pikmin is a great series for learning specific skills. In the Pikmin series, you play as a Captain and command up to 100 little colorful plant creatures, and you throw/lead them to attack enemies, pick up objects, and overcome obstacles. Each type of Pikmin has different abilities that you need to remember and use carefully to accomplish your goals. The game has a day cycle, where you play 1 day at a time (roughly 15 minutes long) and at sunset the day ends. Usually there's some kind of penalty if you waste too many days, leading to your untimely demise, so you need to plan your day to collect the key items you need, keep track of your Pikmin, multitask to maximize efficiency throughout each day, and avoid too many losses.
It's an excellent game for learning time management, resource management, leadership skills, and simply appreciating the time we have in life.
Regarding gaming and surgery, my local hospital has a good example. The hospital purchased a deVinci, but had no surgeons trained to use it. One surgeon figured that since she always beat her brothers when playing video games, she'd give it a shot and asked to be trained. She can now do twice as many surgeries in the same amount of time as anyone else in the local area on the deVinci. The hospital staff consider her a rock star.
This is so amazing!! I love how I am listening to this video while playing Pokémon. I love how video games are helping out the scientific world in a positive way.
There's also the Science Arcade game in Borderlands 3 that is used to sequence ribosomal RNA! As of the end of 2020, players had completed over 63 million puzzles and provide a ton of data to scientific research!
Where can I learn more about this? Links please
My husband used, and still does, gaming to help regain eye hand coordination after a stroke. Both of us use it now for mental exercise. World of Warcraft FTW.
Happy to see more research on video games and the benefits. I used my experience playing Mario Kart for driving, even used the Wii version to help me learn to automatically move the steering wheel the correct way when driving backwards for a driving test. I feel like my memory is pretty good too because when I replay games I haven't played for years, I still know where things are and can follow what to do. I have so many games memorized now, and it feels nice and nostalgic when I can find all of the things. I'd love to see more that use different culture to teach about that, and stuff for languages as others have mentioned. Learning geology and chemistry stuff would be really cool too. I enjoy the games where you adventure but also farm ingredients to make things.
Minecraft
Truth be told, playing Heists in GTA Online has taught me to try to communicate with my teammates and put my trust in them, while at the same time not holding them down and do the best I can. That's perhaps what made me a little more open to helping people given me being such an introvert.
"Nuerons vastly prefer predictable stimulation" and "feedback is clear to making it happen" are two very crucial points to think about in the human brain and how we operate. We want some form of predictability in our lives, and its difficult to change anything unless proper feedback is given as a result.
Years ago the company I was at had the hardest time getting people trained in overhead cranes - those 200+ ton cranes. After about 10 people, with higher seniority than me failed - each after a week of training - I was sent up. After about 2 hours I was on my own. Course it took me 2 months to fully master, but yeah, operating most 'complex' equipment is similar to video games.
I also learned how to do the speed bag by treating my body like a video game interface.
a while ago one of my friends told me about an fda-approved video game designed for young kids with ADHD, and I think it’s pretty cool that it exists! I know that some parents are hesitant regarding certain ADHD treatments (namely stimulant drugs) both because of potential side affects, potential for misuse, the weird stigma that kinda exists regarding stimulants, etc. so I’m glad that this unique kind of option exists.
I’ve seen a very short demo of this game! It was interesting. The video game I saw was a first-person shooter flying a plane over a river, shooting floating objects. Then after 2 or 3 seconds, the background changes to a desert scene. All the objects / plane / trajectory are the same, but only the LOOK of everything has changed. The gameplay continues uninterrupted.
I suppose it trains you to keep focused. Very nice.
What about EvE Online Project Discovery, thousands of nerds recognizing protein patterns and looking for exoplanets
UW represent!!! I'm a research scientist at the University of Washington and also did undergrad here (and am a big fan of gaming) so I was excited to see foldit represented!
As a gamer AND as someone who likes to tinker with electronics, I love love love this video! 🖤
I seriously learned sooooo much in this one sitting. Please keep up the great work!
Funny quick story. I picked up Super Mario Bros. after decades without playing. I lost 9 lives on world 1-1. But then immediately remembered where the Warp Zone on 1-2 was the moment I got there.
I believe one of my professors is on the uk research team for the pong project. I’m studying forensic biology and pathology. This channel along with crash course saving my career!
As a person whos screwing with Minecraft for like 10 years over - games provides one hell of a motivation for somebody to learn something from it if done correctly, like you know, Minecraft literally become the reason why i know English, and the fact that it has *an ungodly amount* of mods (Industrial Craft 2, Silent gems, Gregtech, Big Reactors and thousands more) - its just a matter of time before your kid starts to appreciate like nuclear physics or chemistry, the game is, by all means, a true sandbox for nearly everything.
My fave is the old examples of using WoW to study pandemic response, economies and other sociological phenomena.
Decided to make a game today with a lot of Science and Ancient Egyptian mythology incorporated into story focused platformer. Guess this is my sign to go through with making it. : )
Like assassins creed origins? Not so much science, bu it's a great game that takes place in ancient Egypt and you're a medjay. it was pretty fun. I'm playing assassins Creed Odyssey atm, I'm a spartan now. Haha, I love video games.
@@Lorenzo_That_Vegan_Dad sort of but imagine a platformer something like Mario or Donkey Kong but extremely unique with a ton of story.
@@Lorenzo_That_Vegan_Dad You're an astronaut that goes and explores planets. You start off in a version of Ancient Egypt that is futuristic aesthetic and is quite technological. The priests are steeped in occultism & science. There'll be a lot of chemistry, rocket science, and more.
@@TravisLee33 We have Starfield coming out this year. That is going to be a game where you can literally fly from planet to planet.
But a cyberpunk Egyptian world sounds awesome.
So, me personally, I gave up shooter games, because I was angry very suddenly, very easy. Stopped playing them, and now I feel fine.
Lots of people don't have the ability to see that in themself even as they record themself destroying things.
I was really impressed with Natural Selection 2 (NS2) for rewarding not only cooperative play but also leadership
2:55 "Maybe your next company retreat should involve a team-building exercise with flamethrowers and crossbows on Fortnite"
My last job (Best Buy, American consumer electronics store) actually did this, though not with Fortnite, cuz we were adults. But yeah, we had a monthly Game-night for team-building, it was pretty awesome.
I played super Mario bros with my 3 other younger siblings. My parents told me recently that a big reason why they let us play that game so much was that it actually improved our relationships and communication skills.
Yes, maybe in the game, my sister would get so frustrated that I accidentally took her power, but then I think we learned through experience that everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It taught forgiveness, patience, communication, teamwork, leadership, problem solving, creativity, self awareness(the amount of times I had to avoid people stepping on my head)
kindness and respect… all in a world that had little consequence.
Now, Despite being in our 20’s, When visiting home for a period of time, we still fire up the old wii, and get through a world or two for the night.
I'd rather have kids playing CoD than flicking through tiktok all day
The Scishow Tik Tok: 😐
Tik tok is more influential than video games to how adolescents act.
@@evanmisejka4062 -to our horrible detriment
@@olbradley Apparently many people also use it as a search engine, which is even worse.
The community may not be that great and might encourage some less-than-ideal personality traits, but at least they do get to learn how to work with a team and communicate effectively to achieve a specific goal.
When I was around the age of 14 give or take I got my hands on Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquillity. Making money in that game was hard and spending it was easy just like in life. I started to make a goal of what to save, for instance 5,000G and then not let myself spend below that until I reached the new goal like 10,000G. So say I wanted to buy a new house upgrade that cost 12,000g in the game and I didn't want to go below 10,000G. I would save until I have 22,000G and then buy it. And then the cycle would continue with me making higher goals not to fall past when purchasing anything. I learned really quickly how to save money through that game alone and to this day it sticks!
0:18 There were other video games before 1958 eg Bertie the Brain (1950) and Nim (1951). The key difference is Tennis for Two was intended solely for entertainment rather than research or tech demos, but the previous video games were just as novel and entertaining to the lucky first gamers.
I think when Hank says scientists are studying the top Foldit players to understand how they solve puzzles, that's a reference to my work! Uhh, AMA I guess? Also thanks SciShow!
Cool to learn about the humans playing the protein folding game. I knew about AlphaFold, but I think the fact that AI achievements seem to be coming along in leaps and bounds can distract from the awesome stuff our human brains can do if we figure out the right way to frame a problem.
0:32 NSLS II under construction. Center for Functional Nanomaterials (metamaterial science) just down the street to the left there. NSLS I north of that.
0:30 Tennis for two was one of the first video games, but not the very first. BNL itself will tell you that Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle R. Mann patented the “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device" in 1948, U.S. Patent 2455992. Tennis for Two was the first one to generate standing-room only access though.
I was diagnosed as dyslexic when I was 7. Before dyspraxia was considered. It was just known that my dyslexia impacted my coordination. My doctor told my mom to have me play Breakout every day and track my score to work on improving my hand eye coordination. And yes, Breakout was still a commonly played game. Atari was basically what there was. I'm that old. But it was used even then to help with some issues, though not formally.
Did it help?
@@Just_Sara I think it did. The idea was to find a fun way of using those skills. I never did as well as others, but I think I did improve.
When I was a chemist a crime lab in the mid 70's we had a PDP-11 running our JOEL electron microscope with X-ray EDS. We occasionally played an early Asteroids type game that had a ship that calculated the orbits around the sun. It was on a FOUR INCH screen! The computer on our Finnegan GC-MS was so primitive we had to put in the manually enter the boot code if the system completely shut down . No games on this one, there wasn't even a screen, all communication was in printouts! When studying FORTRAN in college we had to carry around big boxes on Hollerith cards. I used to joke that you could always tell if a student did programming because one arm was stretched longer than the other from toting boxes of cards across campus ;-)
Hank, I can't believe you're talking about useful games but didn't even mention puzzle games with stories, like detective/mystery games, from companies like Haiku, Five BN Games, Domini Games, Friendly Fox... Those are wonderful for memory, reading, using logic (or illogic, lol) etc. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM!
Borderlands Science also comes to mind here. BL3 has an in-game block puzzle mini game whose block patterns are built from actual RNA segments. The way players sequence the blocks help scientists compare the genomes of various gut microbes.
Those kids who play a mini-game called bedwars at a server called hypixel on Minecraft learn incredible hand coordination and to work under stress.
It's also an online game where you have to work with other people to achieve a goal, this means that the kids who play it are also learning social skills that will help them in other aspects of life. I wonder if there should be a study of kids who regularly play online games and how it affects their development of social skills vs kids that didn't.
Great video. Thank you Scishow for all these years of free content. You guys are the best
finnally my excessive hand-eye coordination from my minecraft bridging skills can be put to use in surgery
Teaching dish neurons to learn the same way we teach virtual neural networks is good reassurance that we're approaching NNs and AIs in the right way. NNs on a computer receive inputs and turn those into outputs, and the nets improve performance by receiving positive and negative reinforcement based on a reward function. If the same tricks work with physical neurons for small-scale applications like game-playing AIs that means we're on the right path to scale virtual neural networks to eventually have general intelligence, like a full human brain has!
I love this channel for how accurate it is in information
I guess we're going to start seeing more skilled surgeons become video game streamers...
I'm a little surprised streaming surgeries isn't a thing, given how notoriously narcissistic surgeons are. I guess it's a pretty bad HIPAA violation.
@@davidhand9721 Gore. That’s the main reason it doesn’t happen.
My first introduction into the world wide web was through Folderol, which computed protein folding by using screensaving time in multiple computers which had downloaded Folderol's screensaver. It was many years after I had used Internet through menus and phone logging in in the '80's.
a norwegian neuro science group had patients play duke nukem 3d and demonstrated children given the game very young develop unusually good memories
That first study's researchers like "alright, so we'll take one group of kids and let them play their favorite video game ever, then we'll take this other group and have them play something dumb like pinball, then we'll ask which group would volunteer their time again."
Pretty sure that's not measuring what you're wanting it to measure
These are all great, thanks for the video!
I seem to recall some years back that _Starcraft_ turned out to be really good for cognition in seniors too.
It’s always great to hear when people absolutely crush specifically trained AI. Reminds me we are still far from the singularity.
This is what I love about science, finding use in the craziest of things. The goal is to better society; however we can, with whatever we can!
Not being English my native language, I learned this language by playing videogames back in my days because back then there was no setup to change language on most of them.
And I was eager to understand the meaning behind the words of every character; in Final Fantasy 3 for example in get to know Kefka's motivation.
I inherited my Great Grandma's NES recently. She got it in the late 1900s to help slow down her Alzheimer's. She didn't move to a home until the early 2000s. Now it sits on a legacy shelf with an original pressing of LOZ in it lol
I have played Pong using just my face; I once tested an adaptive device for disabled people that used electromyography and EEG signals for typing and other tasks on a computer, and one task was playing Pong using my facial muscles.
I have noticed that since I have been playing Mario Cart again, my reaction time has improved real world. Particularly when driving 🤓 I feel sharper mentally.
Highly recommend games to the 50+ crowd 💯
The problem I have with some of the studies sited is that the effects of the play are measured minutes or hours and at most days after the test is taken. This isn't really doing much more than "push polling" the results of your study. There needs to be a much longer prolonged observation of the effects of video games (or really any other human activity) to come to a reasonable conclusion on the effects of the activity on society; similar to the VR study on surgeons reviewed here.
Honorable mention: Borderlands 3 has a mini game, where players can help map out the human gut microbiome! :D
Video games are science? Does that make me a scientist?
If you're a game dev, yes.
only if you write down what you study
if you just play a game you arnt a scientist
if you play a game and produce a paper studying an aspect of the game, maybe
everyone check out my white paper
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Please. I want "Science, never put down the controller" merch
When I was in Army boot camp a video simulator was used to help recruits learn how to aim and shoot their rifles properly in order to knock down targets on the rifle range.
Video Request: The Storegga Slide, and the resulting tsunami. Nobody is talking about it, and today was the first day I heard about it! Seems like a important geological event that nobody learns about. Thanks!
Kerbal Space Program helped me learn orbital physics and the fundamentals of rocket science on an intuitive level than an online class ever could.
I love that u guys are posting longer videos again!❤
This is my favourite episode of scishow so far
Years ago, my dad did the 'early retirement' thing, and rapidly began to lose cognitive ability - I have a horror of being there. I'm now 64, and in my day job I write code - my mission is never to retire unless I become to stupid to do that job. My research, if you will, leads me to believe that if I keep scraping the rust off my brain every day by doing what I do, said brain will keep working reasonably well. Of course, if that strategy fails, I'll be too gaga to let you know...
me and my friends playing vermintide 2 actively tests our teamwork, reaction speed, pattern recognition, and forward-thinking strategizing. We may not be exercising our bodies, but our minds are a fine-tipped spear.
great video to show your parents for all the times they said videogames were unhealthy.
Finally, I can justify my encyclopedic knowledge of Souls/Borne/Sekiro/Ring games!
Cool video! I'm a bit surprised though that you didn't mention how WoW helped scientists to better understand pandemics.
So when are we getting the Hank Green gaming channel?
On the violent videogame thing, I think part of the discussion that gets overlooked is people's ability to differentiate fact from fiction. I doubt a lot of people are going to immediately assume it is okay to be swinging an ax or something around in public because of a game, book, movie, or what have you. Each game and player should be viewed on an individual basis. Who is playing? What is the story and context of the game? Generalizations can only do so much, and relying on generalizations is often a hinderance.
What tested my memory was trying to beat the original Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation in 2 hours (yes there have been faster times but that’s the fastest I could beat it). I would need to memorize exactly where to go and which puzzles to do in order to minimize backtracking. Also would need to know how to avoid enemies and where to get the best weapons and ammunition. Any brain fart, could easily waste 30 minutes of time. 😅
The thing about videogames that blew my mind the most is that playing Tetris shortly after a traumatic event seems to be able to severely lessen the likelyhood of PTSD and even if PTSD develops, the effects are said to be dramatically lessened by playing Tetris.
I really really wish there were like chemistry games, like a lab simulator or something. Where you have to clean up and do everything a normal lab tech does
00:39 Yeah, tennis balls...
It's funny how the commercial flop Wii U and Kinect end up in the hands of researchers and engineers because the tech underneath it is genuinely great it just didn't end up translating as well into mass market appeal in the original context as it should have.
My handle says it all!
I’m surprised y’all didn’t cover the Corrupted Blood incident in World of Warcraft. Epidemiologists have looked to it pre-COVID as a way to model human behavior in response to pandemics. Spoiler alert: humans never really changed.
COVID is not advertiser friendly.
I know playing FFXIV and other games help keep my critical thinking, hand-eye-cordination, reaction times, snap judgement and probably many other skills sharp, as well as my memory, since many of the ones I play require memorizations of lots of mechanics and patterns.
Tetris, Guitar Hero, and Beat Saber are *excellent* at teaching geospatial reasoning, for instance
Whoa the FoldIt thing is so cool!
Wouldn't the first video game player be known as "player zero?"
I remember reading something years ago about how video game can help people with dyslexia learn to read better and help them do better in life. This can make sense if they are interested in or care about the story because they would read all the stuff as they play. As a dyslexic person, I skip anything that I have to read. Lol.
Same.
I'd love to know what parts of the brain are lighting up when someone playing a fighting game when they actually know what they're doing. There's so many different things you think about in a given second when you're playing something like Tekken.
When I was a kid, my mom signed me up for this ADHD testing and research thing... I don't remember the science details because I was like 12 at the time, but TLDR: they put these little electrodes on my head and I played video games WITH MY BRAIN.
It didn't help my ADHD much, but it sure was fascinating!!
I had a pretty cool training, where I had the same neurons that were connected to a video player playing a film. I watched things like Guardians of the galaxy, an assortment of documentaries, penguins of madagascar and a few other films and every time my measured focus went below a certain threshold the film just stopped until I refocused again. And my therapist adjusted that threshold constantly over the film duration. Its great for learning how loosing focus feels like and what you can effectively do to regain it. Instant feedback really helps with the learning process
Awe, I was expecting to see Borderlands Science from the Borderlands 3 game :-(
Speedrunner: can we have those virtual surgeon software?
for reserach.
don't worry, we won't play with it for 48 hr non stop without sleep and eat.
"You know what Fortnite is." Interestingly enough, I did not before watching this!
Did anyone check how many of these studies were paid for by video game industry trade groups? We're talking about a 20 billion dollar industry, and like the tobacco and oil industries before them, they're motivated by profit. There's profit in throwing a few bucks at a hungry university researcher, and scientists who produce positive results are likely to get more of that funding.
For example, why didn't the Fortnite study compare non-violent cooperative games with Fortnite cooperative mode? What if it's entirely the cooperative aspect that confers benefits, and what if the cooperative benefits are far less when it's in a violent vs nonviolent game? When you only compare cooperative violent games with non-cooperative nonviolent games, you obscure what's really going on.
The surgery and hand-eye coordination study has a similar problem to old studies touting the benefits of video games in training fighter pilots. The question is, what problem does this solve? Is our healthcare crisis in any way tied to a shortage of surgeons? I made several attempts to find any mention of this, and in every list of the most in-demand specialties, surgeons don't crack the top 10. The US probably has a glut of doctors overall, and there's some evidence too many med students choose surgery over specialties that we really need more of.
Even when it comes to training surgeons, is hand-eye coordination an issue? Looking at evidence of what it takes to become a surgeon, and what the greatest obstacles in training are, the challenges are study and memory skills, mental focus, emotional stability, good judgement, managing long hours and stress. No mention of butter fingers being the main deal breaker. The fighter pilot claims are the same: sure pilots have to have quick reflexes and precise hand-eye-coordination, but the thing that makes it hard to find good pilots is their decision making ability. Like surgery, it requires managing overwhelming quantities of information and focusing on what's important to make the right decisions in real time. Perhaps some video games simulate these kinds of stresses and develop them, but that remains to be seen. Touting hand-eye coordination without pointing out that it's beside the point is rather irrelevant.
With couple generations of kids growing up steeped in video games, we ought to be enjoying a golden age of brilliant surgeons, and fighter pilots too. There ought to be evidence of that.
Which is similar to the socialization "benefits" of Fortnite. What problem does this solve? Does the survey where kids would -- in theory -- donate more money bear out? Did they? Do they donate more as adults? Is lack of charitable donation a problem? Not in the US; it's perhaps the most generous country in the world, yet has some of the worst inequality among wealthy nations. Educationally, the US suffers from poor math and science skills, in inadequate reading and research skills. Socialization is nice and all, but is that really a problem?
The number of hours playing video games has ballooned in recent decades, yet the rate of charitable giving and volunteering hasn't increased; it has gone down:
news.gallup.com/poll/310880/percentage-americans-donating-charity-new-low.aspx
The big science question here is why this type of study that measures prosocial behaviors with hypothetical donation questions doesn't correlate with reality.
I have nothing against video games. I don't think they're harmful. But I could say the same about canned soup, and if Campbell's Soup was touting research claiming alphabet soup is the solution to the "problem" of teaching kids which letter is which, I'd have questions. Lots of questions.
I wonder who the speed run champion is for FoldIt 🤣
With what he explained about the cultured neurons playing pong I wonder if we will be able to start incorporating them into CPUs. Making a brain electronic instead of an electric brain.
It will be interesting to see what happens at retirement homes in a few years, when people who live there have actually grown up as gamers in the 80s and after.
Mario kart night every tuesday
Old technology is busted and eroded. New technology is too complex and phones have no screen to make more room for cameras. Nothing changes,
Don't know why but every time he mentioned input a line from an old movie came to mind "Need Input"
Knowing all of Dark Souls 1 like the back of my hand has to be good for my brain
When my *40-year-old son was five, I could not hold a candle to his Mario game, *SNES.
Sometimes Mario fails as a memorization aid. I am proof, says this 60yro.
* Stargate Universe, Episode 1 check it out.