Earlier today I was thinking about all the ways that video games have helped me. First and foremost I feel that playing video games has expanded my vocabulary through games like Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, and other games with lots of written dialogue. For example the names of spells in RPGs help players identify the roots of words and relate them to an image from a video game for better recollection at a later date.

I believe that playing video games has also heightened my reaction time beyond what it would normally be. A few years back I was in a car accident during winter. On my way home I took a turn too fast, hit a patch of ice, began spinning and hit a hill with the front end of my car causing it to flip. My car was flipping and spinning through the air. I had no seat belt on and no airbag deployed, yet somehow I walked out of the car with nothing more than a sore shoulder. And it wasn't even that sore. I chalked it up to something cosmic, but my brother swears it's from heightened reflexes due to years of video game playing. After a few more recent late night deer near misses, I'm starting to believe that maybe that was it after all.

Finally, after years of high pressure in game situations, I feel I'm better prepared for these types of situations in real life. I call it the "Extra Life Complex". If you feel like you'll get another chance if you screw up, you're less likely to feel pressured, thus less likely to screw up.

I'm so sick of all these studies being done to find out if video games make people violent. I'd love to see a long term study done on the positive effects that video game playing has on people that love to do it.