Career skills and Gaming

Positive effects of Gaming on a cognitive and psychological level - Part 1 development of Career skills

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I feel there is a bias among media of all kinds that display gaming in a negative light, from the obvious blaming of violent acts on video games dating all the way back to columbine tragedy to more subtle associations with laziness lack of social skills and general ineptitude. This strikes me as unfair and untrue. so in the hope of writing something that may be a refreshing change of pace to those that play games and already at least deep down know what i'm writing about, and eye opening for those that don't I am creating this series.

The prevalence of Gamers in IT related fields is a well known stereotype with a lot of truth to it. Most people attribute this to both IT and gaming being typically "nerdy" interests, this is not an entirely unfair statement to make. For many Gamers particularly PC Gamers an interest in gaming naturally necessitates dealing with computer issues. and an interest in IT naturally leads to increased exposure to gaming culture and news.

This goes a long way to explain the correlation between gaming and IT but I do not think it represents the whole picture.
In my opinion a large part of why there are so many Gamers in IT is that playing video games makes you better at the job!

To explain, IT is at its core a combination of customer service and problem solving now I wont try and claim that gaming is going to do much to improve someone's customer service ability however I would argue that it does wonders for an individuals problem solving skills.

I feel this would be almost self-evident to anyone that plays games regularly but may seem like a somewhat alien concept to those that don't.
I say this because all games are if you break it down enough basically a series of problems to be solved. How do I make this jump? how do I dodge this attack? whats the answer to this puzzle? where do I go next?

Gamers are constantly presented with challenges to overcome and we enjoy it! overtime this tends to breed a mentality of relishing challenges and puzzles to solve and the thought processes required to achieve this. This mentality and skill set is incredibly useful for a career in IT and not just IT, the ability to confidently approach a problem you have no idea how to solve is valuable for anyone and Gaming is one of the best ways to develop this.

Thanks for reading

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