WebsiteCompass 15 stage of life and resources for getting the most out of them. For starters, consider the following tips: • Ask friends what games they play. Answers may range from staid New York Times puzzles to guilty pleasures like paint-by-number apps or intense active shooters. • Ask your kids. They may love to play games you wouldn’t like but may be aware of others you would. • Buy a gaming console. Once you have one, you can browse the selections available to play there. Seniors Older adults can also derive significant benefits from gaming. Here are just a few: • Memory improvement. Trying new things is helpful for maintaining brain health. Video games require learning additional skills, even across levels of the same game. • Social opportunities. For seniors with limited mobility, going out to meet friends may be a challenge. Gaming can enable social interaction without the need to be physically active. • Better eyesight. Those who play games become attuned to seeing more details in their environment, which is important for tasks such as driving. • Improved cognitive abilities. Your ability to recognize and remember objects can decline as you age. Gaming can help slow that decline. Seniors can learn from tips from the previous section for finding games to play. Here are some additional ones specifically well suited to this age group: • StardewValley. In this relaxing yet challenging game, you play a farmer who can plant, raise animals, fish, mine, and develop relationships with other characters to achieve goals. • Angry Birds. This game is played on a smartphone or tablet rather than a console. Cute, colorful, and somewhat addicting, it requires hand-eye coordination to use a catapult to fire birds into various structures. • Pokémon GO. The beauty of this game is in the “GO” part as you explore areas in the real world, with superimposed characters to collect. • Guitar Hero. Many adults over 50 still love to rock out. This game enables you to listen to some of your favorite bands and use a guitar-shaped controller to play along. How Gaming Can Help Those with Special Needs Gaming is not just for fun and leisure. It also shows up in the worlds of business, education, and health care. One of the ways in which gaming can be used to promote well-being is by enhancing the abilities of people with special needs, which might include more people than you’d think. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in four adults—over 60 million people—in the U.S. has some type of disability that interferes with mobility, cognition, independent living, hearing, vision, or self-care. Gaming can help mitigate the effects of these disabilities in the following ways: • Increased interaction with the world. Video games, especially those with a VR component, can enable individuals with limited mobility to explore new places. • Improved emotional state. People with disabilities may suffer from depression more than others. Playing video games can help by offering stress relief and a sense of accomplishment. • Improvedmotor skills. Playing video games can enhance some of the skills those with disabilities may struggle with, including hand-eye coordination. Finally, games that allow people to play together can reduce social isolation, further contributing to a sense of well-being. Source: dataprot.net/statistics/gamer-demographics Source: cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityand health/infographic-disability- impacts-all.html
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMzNDE=