There are a lot of researches that have shown that playing the game of Tetris really increases your cortex’s thickness and the brain’s efficiency as well. Hence, if you are constantly playing Tetris, then you will be smarter. This game surely needs a lot of combinations of cognitive skills. In various researches done on different players of Tetris, it has been proven that people who play the game had boosted their brain efficiency.
Sometimes I play Tetris myself when I have some time to kill. This is a kind of game that tests my coordination amongst physiological, auditory, and visual parts of my brain.
Tetris helps in developing thinking and learning skills in the majority of players. The increase in the thickness of the cortex is related to the increase in the brain’s gray matter. Therefore, I am more and more becoming a better Tetris player as the level of my IQ increases as time passes by. Practicing regularly definitely does make Tetris much easier for me.
What is in the game that makes players addicted to it?
This plays into what researchers call the “Zeigarnik Effect”, in which the natural tendency of the brain to recall unfinished tasks over finished tasks.
Tetris, and all other puzzle games, directly appeal to a person’s natural desire to arrange things, achieve goals, and finish tasks. Tetris is an infinitely challenging puzzle game, but it satisfies players all the time.
There is some mystic about Tetris in which players are offered a constant stream of ongoing tasks altogether as players are rewarded even with small accomplishments.
By playing Tetris, where shapes continue to sprint towards the puzzle, you need to move faster compared to your spatial decision, working with it rather than processing it all together in your mind. This is the opposite of overthinking but keeps the brain productive and active.
Whenever I play Tetris, I am being rewarded by my achievement, yet re-challenged continuously, and all pretty and colorful but visually simple still.
Hence, does more effective thinking offset the addiction factor? Like me, there are many people who dreamed in the game and traveled around mentally fitting shapes together or assembling their furniture in an organized way without having the thought of why they are doing it. There is some magic regarding the simplicity of playing Tetris will its shapes and objects that leave a mark on the brain. I tell you one thing is for use. Playing Tetris does make me a lot smarter.
What is the concept of Tetris?
The concept of Tetris is quite easy though completing the actions is rather challenging. All you need to do is put the pieces that are supplied at random in matching order. If you get pieces that do not fit into the puzzle, you need to find a solution to this problem and figure out how to solve the puzzle. However, you will be given a timeline, and once you fail, you lose the game. But, if you win, you will continue playing the game and proceed to the next level wherein the challenge gets faster and harder.
Why playing Tetris has a great effect on the brain
Oftentimes, Tetris has been considered as a being a simplistic entertainment for children. While this is correct that it can be a lot of fun playing the game, some people do not realize the benefits of playing Tetris. I found told that playing Tetris can actually boost my mind’s functionality.
You might be asking yourself how that was even possible…
It mostly sounds as if someone is making up this kind of story so that you could play Tetris more regularly.
As a matter of fact, it has been proven in various scientific studies. The thought of why playing Tetris has a great effect on the brain is it allows the players to use the mind’s both sides. This is extremely rare since a lot of activities that I take part in every day only need me to make use of the other half of my brain. Whenever I do something that involves my full mind, I am placing myself in the position to progress more neural routes that enable my feelings and thoughts to travel throughout my brain effectively. The same is accurate for thinking. The more existing pathways, the better I am able to discover resolutions to problems quicker.
How much should I play Tetris?
You are not required to play Tetris all the time to benefit from it. A lot of people like to do something in an overzealous or excessive manner. I am not suggesting that you allow yourself to play almost 10 hours a day by just playing Tetris. Conversely, if you are in a bit of downtime while you are at the office, there is actually nothing wrong if you play at least 15 minutes of Tetris. In fact, the better you are at Tetris, the more challenging you want to play Tetris as it pushes your mind to excel.
The connection between intelligence and Tetris
The connection between intelligence and video games has become a persistent concept that many people have been monitoring. Similar to the game of Tetris, people have thought that there was a link between games and intelligence. However, this claim can have a simpler justification.
Those people who are having this kind of thought just might be the same people who are actually playing the game.
In a lot of cases, there have been findings on people who play Tetris that there is actually a connection between the game and intelligence.
Initially, a group of individuals was asked for their brain to undertake an MRI scan. Next, this group was divided into two groups as they were studied. The first group was asked to play Tetris for a certain period of time for a couple of months. The other group was asked not to play Tetris. Both groups were scanned by MRI again after a couple of months. The results were extremely effective as it was thought that the brain cells in an individual had not changed. However, it was found out that the first group who played Tetris actually increased their brain’s gray matter. That indicates that there was essentially a sizeable improvement in the mental skills of the first group.
The research continues…
The researchers plan to continue this kind of study with more, larger, varied samples in order to examine whether the brain of an individual change measured regress back when the first group stopped playing Tetris. Likewise, they would like to know whether the skills learned by the group by just playing the game, as well as the related changes to the brain shift to other mental areas like spatial reasoning, processing speed, or working memory.
Exercise your mind by playing Tetris
Exercising the mind can be performed in a variety of ways. However, puzzle games are among the most mentally inciting games until now. The reason for this is because the mind is trained to incorporate objects and shapes. Playing Tetris has actually helped me build my spatial intelligence.
There are a lot of people these days who say that maybe the single thing that Tetris does is just increasing intelligence. That is, I have gained intelligence by just playing the game of Tetris. However, this is extremely controversial. Although it is a fact that Tetris is not just as difficult as the newer games released nowadays, there is a lot of mental incentive that is related to playing Tetris. The game actually stimulates spatial intellect since reaction time goes faster as the difficulty of the game progresses.
Conclusion
It is believed that playing Tetris is one of the most challenging puzzle games, yet fun to play with. I certainly have been playing this game for a lot of years now, and even though I am in my 20’s, and I have access to way better games such as Call of Duty or GTA, I still have time to play simple games such as Tetris, just to exercise my brain.
Certainly, playing Tetris has provided me with the help I need to improve the activity of my brain, especially when the shapes and objects are moving faster and faster towards the end of the puzzle. It has helped me gain and build my spatial intelligence.
Even at work or even, I have spare time, sometimes I still find myself playing Tetris on my iPhone.
Yes, the concept of the game is quite challenging since you must put the shapes and objects in a matching order with a certain period of time. Still, it helps in boosting the brain activity of the player as it needs to find a better solution in order to solve the puzzle and proceed to the next level wherein the game gets tougher and more difficult.
Since a lot of studies prove that Tetris really does make a person smarter, then I do recommend that you, too, should play this game sometime.
Sources:
https://www.wired.com/2009/09/how-tetris-changes-your-brain/
