Electronic Games and Mental Preservation

In the most recent issue of TIME, Dr. George W. Rebok, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is mentioned for saying that after the age of 70 age-related brain degeneration can speed up dramatically. He adds that good ways of countering this degeneration involve "activities that engage and stimulate" the brain. After reading this, I couldn't help but think that an activity which often engages and stimulates the brain, sometimes to the exclusion of all other stimuli and frequently to the dismay of my mother, is playing electronic games.

Given that both scientific research and conventional wisdom advocate engaging mental activity not only for people at risk of mental degeneration, but also for people who will not be at risk of it for years to come, it is interesting to consider what the effect would be of regular (but not excessive) electronic gaming on a person's long term mental health. Concerning short-term mental ability, although there does not yet appear to be a consensus, you need only type "video games mental health" into Google to find a growing amount of research indicating that playing electronic games can improve everything from a person's concentration to their social skills.

Research, let alone agreement, on the long-term mental health benefits of playing electronic games is even sparser. That being said, researchers will soon find themselves in an optimal position to find out about this subject as the younger generation, whose membership includes a growing number of people who regularly play electronic games, grows older. I, for one, would be surprised if not a single study emerges saying that it wouldn't hurt grandma and grandpa if they picked up the Playstation controllers every now and again.