Naaah! I disagree. In fact, I think that those making such assertions have never really experienced what it is like to have all your senses immersed in a simulation to such an extent that you completely lose track of time. Hunger pangs do not even bother you as the game itself is so satisfying......
This was me waaay back in my teens when I first held Flight Simulator X in my hands after one of my uncles had bought it for me knowing that I had an interest in flying. I could not even sleep that night. I quickly rushed to the computer and installed the game.
About 20 minutes or so later, and with 15GB of hard disk space occupied by FSX, I was now trying out the Cessna 172 out of one of the local airports. At that time, I did not even care care to know about checklists and references. All I wanted to do was just fly this plane.
Furthermore, the graphics, detail and overall realism of FSX really had me mind blown, more so because it was a huge upgrade from the previous sim I had.
With time, I decided to become more intentional about learning everything from scratch. This was because my approach to flying was casual, in the sense that I picked any aircraft that fancied me, got it up into the air, then landed it shortly afterwards. It became monotonous after a while and I realized that I was really under utilizing this resource.
I think I can attribute this to the initial excitement that I had after receiving the latest sim at that time.
After the 'honeymoon phase' wore out, I became more serious about learning.
I remember doing traffic patterns and holding patterns on the Cessna 172, then taking a break for a few minutes before embarking on another flight.
After a while, I had eventually mastered part of the aircraft checklists, more so on the 737-800 (which was and still is my favorite aircraft in FSX) as well as understanding weight and balance calculations, descent to the approach fix calculations among other things and this act of being more intentional made me love my sim even more.
Thereafter, I began mentally putting myself in the real life role of Pilot in Command and I would conduct all my flights in a 'professional' manner, meaning that if I had blundered at any point of the flight, be it taxiing with speeds in excess of 20 knots or exceeding 250 knots below 10,000ft, I would end the flight and start all over again until everything was perfect.
Later, I would begin adding more aircraft into my hangar from freeware sites such as simviation.com, fsfreeware.net, rikooooo.com etc, and I learnt through a lot of trial and error which aircraft were good quality and which ones weren't. I also learnt how to tweak aircraft cfg. files for those aircraft that had unrealistic flight dynamics, for instance, fully loaded Dreamliners that were taking off with climb rates of +6000ft/min!!!!! or 767's that could not climb past FL280 (or 28,000ft) even with zero cargo and passengers.
I mean, it was so much fun having all this knowledge in my late teens and into my twenties.
So what am I really driving at here.
When I look back over the years, I can say with confidence that immersing myself into this world of simulation imparted self-discipline in the sense that I made sure to learn how aircraft systems worked before embarking on any flight, following checklists as required and most importantly, knowing when to take necessary breaks from gaming because of the health hazards involved. Earlier I would not heed any advice to tone down on sitting in front of a screen for an entire day because in my mind I was investing time for something I would eventually do in real life.
I also learnt how to think ahead or anticipate reactions of the aircraft based on the control inputs I gave.
It also helped me improve my speed in mental calculations and this is because, when flying jets, everything happens so fast and I had to be quick to calculate when I would begin the descent, how long it would take to arrive at the approach fix etc. This also helped me later on in matters outside of aviation.
I also got to learn how to troubleshoot problems that would crop up occasionally with the game and in essence helped me become even more computer savvy.
That said and done, we can also not discount the genuine concerns about the risks of excessive gaming on health.
For one, a sedentary lifestyle is dangerous in that it increases the likelihood of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other complications.
Another concern is antisocial behavior. Because one is glued to the screen the entire day, they miss out on opportunities to go interact and learn from others and therefore, while one may become an expert at the game, the person may be lacking at social interactions.
This person might also tend not to have any other thing of interest apart from the game, and so even when conversing with others, nothing of substance might really come out of hanging out with this person.....
And there you have it guys, I believe I have debunked that myth that video games are for losers adequately :D
Let me know your thoughts....
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