Video games can be good for you

“Video games are bad for you”' They say. They are wrong. Video games can teach you great skills such as teamwork and they also can train you to be more attentive and even help your work ethic!

Teamwork is a large element in most games. Games ranging from Minecraft to Portal have some aspect of teamwork involved in them. This is a very useful skill to have throughout your life and some jobs even devote whole days to train teamwork while video games can teach teamwork at a young age.

Teaching attentiveness is harder to see in games but it’s there. In Portal 2 you are placed in a room and must escape using a portal gun and the portals from it. To escape you must put portals in certain places and manipulate elements to open the door to the next room. This teaches attentiveness by making you scour the room looking for the solution to the puzzle. Attentiveness is helpful in many things ranging from studying for tests to interpreting graphs and data.

Now a lot of people would disagree with me if I were to say video games helped teach work ethic. They do though! Many people are probably thinking “Video games make my kid lazier!” and it may seem like that. Rather, I find myself and others spending time out of their day to do work within the video games whether it be training their skills or strengthening their borders against attacking forces.

This story was originally published January 6, 2017 at 7:52 PM with the headline "Video games can be good for you."