How video games got me good grades and saved my life

     ok, so aside from the already pronounced literature on the advantages that video game players have over non-players have with regards to peripheral attention, deciphering complex visual cues, increased logic and problem solving abilites, as well as better hand to eye coordination (as documented by Green and Bavelier for example), there are other advantages. These conditions have directly benefited myself.

      i did well on a test last week on human prehistory (the times before written records), because of Sid Meir's Civilization series. i know much of the intuitive scientific progress of cultures, as well as specific cities in some sort of chronological order due to this game. Two questions on my quiz...... what is considered the first major city, and what is the largest settlement we know about in north america,  were both things i knew from the game (oh, and for the record... question 1- the sumerian city of Urok, and question 2- Cahokia, a settlement right here in southern illinois), and benefited my grade.

       Also,  the game Gran Tourismo, a very detailed driving game taught me how to drive rear wheel drive cars. my Jeep Wrangler was a rear wheel drive, and my first experience actually driving one. Anyone who has experienced this knows that how you handle sliding, and in general control the vehicle are markedly different between front and rear wheel drive. On a snowy mountain pass in Pennsylvania, i was in between a guardrail, which overlooked a very steep ravine, and a tractor trailer when i lost control of the jeep ( i know this could have been avoided if i was in 4-wheel drive at the time, but we are not dealing in hypotheticals here). I knew how to counter-turn the slide (which is the opposite way of handling a slide in a front wheel drive) because of this video game. i had used rear wheel drive in it, and for the life of me couldnt keep control of the car. When i finally figured it out, it was no real problem. I implemented this video game experience while driving and managed to control the slide safely in between the two obstacles that could have resulted in death (ask Joseph LMS, one of the possible fatalities had i not played video games).

so never knock video games people. they save lives and entertain.