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Videogames have been around since the 1980’s, it was only recently that they have been used for purposes other then entertainment. The way they benefit America’s youth is they may be able to help them to learn things on more of a level that they are used to by using resources that they will enjoy. That way the children that may not like to read or study can do something that they would enjoy and still be able to learn. These games may help the player improve in both physical and intellectual abilities.
Some videogames may hold some physical advantages to their users. A doctor named Jo Bryce from Manchester University says that gamers that play more then eighteen hours of videogames a week may have hand-eye coordination as good as a professional athlete (Collett para.14). Even NASA believes that they can be used in this way, they use mainstream videogames to train their pilots and improve their reflexes (Collett para.14). Most people, mostly parents, think that videogames are part of what makes America one of the most overweight countries in the world, that may have been the case years ago, but the new Nintendo Wii is actually getting kids to get off the couch and teaching them to be active. The game Wii Sports has people playing games such as bowling, tennis, and baseball using the game systems motion controls. There is a professor of Exercise Physiology named Tim Cable who experimented using the game and children playing it, he says that the calories burned playing the game is only about twenty-five percent less then the calories burned doing the actual sport (Roan para.3). I’m sure we’ve all heard the anti-gaming advocates ranting about how bad videogames must
be for children, but the truth is, there are no recognized studies that prove that playing games can cause bad eye sight, seizures or violence in today’s youth (Collett para. 12). But videogames must be harmful to a child’s mind though right, wrong.