Do video games make you smarter? This is what UNAM says.

Are you a fan of video games? You've probably heard about the supposed consequences they entail. And while anything in excess is bad, the idea that this type of entertainment is wrong is quite old. Experts and educational institutions have conducted studies to prove or disprove this theory, and the results are surprising!

If you consider yourself a gamer and enjoy leveling up in your free time, then you should know what the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) thinks about the benefits of video games.

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Whether the theme is soccer, action, adventure, competition, wrestling, or horror, video games, according to Dr. Federico Bermúdez Rattoni, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), engage the brain and various abilities, such as audiovisual skills. They also improve the nervous system and attention span.

They also stimulate short-term memory (where you store and remember recent events), working memory (responsible for remembering new events so you can use them later), and episodic memory (which stores information about monuments, places, emotions, and contextual details of life episodes).

As if that were not enough, in different areas of medicine it has been proven that they have benefits such as:

• They help with neurorehabilitation: There are cases in which people recover their skills (gripping or mobility) after an accident thanks to video games.
• They are a good tool to attack cognitive decline.
• They improve cognitive function in people with multiple sclerosis and in the treatment of dyslexia.
• They function as "virtual anesthesia": It's a form of distraction for young patients during dental surgeries.
• When you play with other people online, you increase your ability to work as a team, communicate assertively, and exercise good leadership.

Despite these advantages, Bermúdez Rattoni points out that the benefits are different for each person and depend on several factors: age, hours of play, how sociable the person is, among others.

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• Minecraft: This game encourages creativity, problem-solving skills, and teamwork. And in its educational format, it teaches the fundamentals of programming. It is available for computers, smartphones and video game consoles.
• Tetris: This famous game, released in 1984, has been shown to be beneficial for critical thinking and information processing; it also stimulates visual and spatial memory. You can play it online or in app stores.
• Captain Toad Treasure Tracker: Available on Nintendo Switch; promotes problem solving, critical reasoning and memory.

EM