The coronavirus pandemic has taken the world by storm for over a year now and very few people predicted it would last quite this long. When we were first told to stay at home for a while, there was a question looming over everyone’s heads.
What am I going to do sitting at home for the foreseeable future?
Sure, most people’s jobs were forced to adapt to a system of remote work. But what about hobbies? Plenty of people enjoy outdoor activities during their time off of work.
Well, it turns out that everyone decided to start gaming.
That’s right, playing video games became one of America’s top lockdown activities.
It happened so fast that even some companies couldn’t keep up. Nintendo’s sales alone were up over 70% from March to September of 2020. It was close to impossible to buy a Nintendo Switch during those spring and summer months.
Even with the uptick in gaming across the country, can gaming be considered a healthy lockdown activity? We’ll discuss a few reasons why gaming is proving to be a healthy and worthwhile hobby.
Spend Time With Your Friends Online
There is a terrible and inaccurate stereotype of gamers being antisocial losers that live in their parents’ basement. On the contrary, gaming is actually a social hobby with loners being considered outliers in the world of video games.
Most people are gaming with others online during lockdown. It is proving to be a fun, interactive way to spend time with the people you love while respecting social distancing.
But the social aspects of gaming aren’t restricted to your family or the friends you know in-person. Plenty of people are forging brand new friendships and even entire communities through gaming online.
Discord, a popular text and voice chat app for gamers, has been booming since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
There are servers on Discord for every game imaginable. People meet and build new friendships every day on the platform proving that gaming is a great way to stay social during the pandemic.
Using Lockdown Activities to Develop Skills
Gaming isn’t just a fun way to pass the time, it can actually help develop some great skills as well.
Some games require an immense amount of coordination including negotiation tactics, critical thinking, and much more. Working with others in a game can lead to the development of incredible team-building skills.
Some very hard games like Dark Souls can even help players develop positive motivational habits. Overcoming adversity in the face of one failure after another is great practice for similar real-world situations.
On top of building up cognitive skills, video games are great for developing sharp mechanical skills as well. Hand-eye coordination and spatial recognition are just two examples of some manual skills that games can help to hone.
Remember that developing great manual skills requires using solid gaming equipment. Don’t worry though, you can even snag some great tech on a budget. There are some great options on gaming laptops under 300 dollars.
Gaming Is Good for Your Mental Health
The importance of mental health is still extremely understated in today’s society. Maintaining your mental health is just as important as your physical health.
Luckily, researchers are discovering that gaming is a positive factor on peoples’ well-being. People are just happier when they’re gaming.
This may have something to do with the large amount of goal-setting in gaming today. Gamers achieve goals that either the game, or themselves, set and that is quite the powerful shot of serotonin.
Games can also provide a safe and healthy place for people to take risks that they may otherwise avoid in real life. Success in these risks can provide a major boost in self-confidence.
On top of that, more positive reinforcement can come from your playgroup as well. Communicating and working together with teammates can help deepen relationships and provide a positive support network. Sometimes, this is the only place an individual can receive positive reinforcement.
Using Games for Family-Bonding
There are a whole bunch of people out there that claim even the best video games to be unfit for kids. But what if we told you that gaming could bring families closer together?
Sometimes families have a difficult time bonding with each other but gaming can provide a fun, healthy way to connect. During lockdown, it’s easier than ever to get the family together without the hustle and bustle of outside lives.
It’s not a stretch to say that cooped-up families have been stepping on each other’s toes during the pandemic. Beating each other up in the virtual realm is a much more healthy way to release some steam than yelling at each other.
Parents even get a rare opportunity to teach through video games as well. Explaining concepts and themes can be a great way to educate children in a fun, non-threatening way.
Embracing the Future of Gaming
Video games are a fantastic hobby and the coronavirus pandemic has shown the whole country how amazing they can be as lockdown activities. With more people gaming than ever before, who knows how big the industry will grow in the coming years.
The future of gaming is looking bright and you can rest easy knowing that your time spent gaming is not time wasted. Hopefully, the world will start to accept video games as a healthy and positive way to spend your free time.
Do you want to read more on all things video games? Make sure to check back on our blog for more updates on the gaming world.