A game is an interactive game that uses computer technology and is often known as a computer game or video game. The systems, or “platforms,” on which video games are played include handheld game consoles, mobile devices like cellular phones, general-purpose shared and personal computers, arcade consoles, video consoles connected to home television sets, handheld gaming machines, and server-based networks. Video games can refer to any of these media together or, more narrowly speaking, simply to those that are played on video displays, such as arcade consoles and televisions.

On-screen gaming is a concept that predates computers themselves by almost a decade. At first, the benefits of this activity were anticipated to be strongly tied to the study of computation. For instance, when Claude Shannon, a mathematician, and engineer, suggested in 1950 that computers could be taught to play chess, he pondered whether this would imply that a computer was capable of thought. In general, computer scientists working in the field of artificial intelligence pursued research on chess and checkers-playing systems for decades after Shannon’s concept. Many people play action real-time strategy video games like Total War, Age of Empires, and World of Warcraft. These games put a lot of strain on the brain since they can be won by using strategic thought, selective attention, sensorimotor abilities, and teamwork.

According to research, playing games can help children’s cognitive development, including their sensitivity to contrast, hand-eye coordination, and memory. However, no research has ever been done on the long-term consequences of gaming on a crucial cognitive ability known as temporal visual selective attention, which is the ability to discern between important and irrelevant information in a fast-moving stream of visual stimuli.

Source: Frontiers Science
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