1. Just-in-time learning.
Videogames give you just enough information that you can usefully apply. You are not given information you'll need for level 8 at level 1, which can often be the case with schools that download files of information that are never applied. Videogames provide doable challenges that are constantly pushing the edge of a player's competence. This is similar to Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.
Lev Vygotsky
2. Critical thinking.
When you play videogames you're entering a virtual world with only the vaguest idea of what you are supposed to do. As a result, you need to explore the physics of the game and generate a hypothesis of how to navigate it. And then test it. Because games are complex, you are continually reformulating and retesting your hypothesis -- the hallmark of critical thinking.
3. Increased memory retention.
Cognitive science has recently discovered that memory is a residue of thought. So what you think about is what you remember. As videogames make you think, they also hold the potential to increase memory retention.
4. Emotional interest.
Videogames are emotionally engaging. Brain research has revealed that emotional interest helps humans learn. Basically, we don't pay attention to boring things. The amygdala is the emotional center of the brain and also the gateway to learning.
5. We learn best through images.
Vision is our most dominant sense, taking up half of our brain's resources. The more visual input, the more likely it is to be recognized and recalled. Videogames meet this learning principle in spades as interactive visual simulations.
John Pearce on 14 May 12The Internet is becoming our main source of memory instead of our own brains, a study has concluded. In the age of Google, our minds are adapting so that we are experts at knowing where to find information even though we don't recall what it is. The researchers found that when we want to know something we use the Internet as an 'external memory' just as computers use an external hard drive. Nowadays we are so reliant on our smart phones and laptops that we go into 'withdrawal when we can't find out something immediately'. And such is our dependence that having our Internet connection severed is growing 'more and more like losing a friend'.
