Do Video Games Help with Hand-Eye Coordination

      Sports have always been regarded as the best way to improve hand-eye coordination, but recently it has been proven that videogames may improve it just as much, if not more than sports. A study was taken where a surgeon would play a certain video game before performing surgery for a certain amount of hours per week and see how quickly and precisely they could perform the procedure. The study found that surgeons who played video games for at least three hours a week made 37 percent fewer mistakes and performed the procedure 27 percent faster than those who did not play video games at all. Now, mainstream sports are still better for improving general coordination and balance, but video games are shown to improve motor skills, such as stbaility for delicate maneuvers.

 

While playing a videogame (a First Person Shooter for example) you have to watch the screen, scan the screen for enemies or objects of interest, use your thumbs to move the analog sticks to navigate on-screen by maintaining the right pressure on the stick in the direction you would like to move, move your thumb off the analog sticks to press other buttons, and perform a lot of small adjustments while watching the screen. While playing sports or other such activities require you to be more coordinated in general, playing a videogame requires you to use your eyes to adjust the amount of force each individual finger is using while your eyes analyze what each individual movement has done; the process then repeats itself as the gamer makes corrections or sees a new target.

 

In short: Video Games rule.



                                         -Aaron Adams