Playing Video Games Makes You a Better Driver

A series of five games that are proven to improve mental abilities was distributed free of charge by Allstate insurance company to 100,000 old age drivers from Pennsylvania.

 

Of course, they are all driving-based games, not “Diablo,” “World of Warcraft” or “GTA.” The game suite, called InSight, usually costs $495 (395 Euros or 285 pounds), and was developed by Posit Science with the declared goal of revitalizing some lost mental perception, attention and reflexes.

 

Allstate is hoping that, besides the obvious advertising, client-attracting purpose, this effort will also turn its older customers into more prudent drivers. As Allstate's Tom Warden claims, “We expect to see that the group using the software will have a lower frequency of crashes verses the group that didn't use the software.”

 

With age, the brain's usually silent neurons start making noise at random, explains Joe Hardy from Posit Science. Although the cause is still unknown, this has been observed by experts to lead to excessive noise that affects concentration ability, memory and reaction. Scientific research proved, during 20 years of constant testing, that about 10 hours of playing could translate into a 10-year leap back for memory, visual information processing, field of view enlargement and cognitive functionality. According to the research results of the University of Alabama, this kind of driving video games can reduce risks of car accidents by 50%.

 

However, besides driving-related skills, gaming “raises the overall quality of life,” as Warden states. “The benefits are not just in physical activities like driving a car, but also in remembering things more often to have fewer senior moments,” he adds. Although they fade out within a few months, playing the games again restores the obtained effects immediately. According to Hardy, “In the past we thought that the brain was this static object, and after it became fully developed it slowly declined. Now through the right exercises you can maintain a high level of function coupled with the experience age brings.”