{"id":518,"date":"2015-02-02T22:56:34","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T05:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/?p=518"},"modified":"2015-02-23T22:49:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T05:49:19","slug":"interactive-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/2015\/02\/02\/interactive-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Interactive Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since the introduction of numerous mobile apps and video games, interactive media has certainly become a new standard in our daily lives. Ranging from learning how to cook new recipes<\/a>, or to sharpen our own math skills, developers are constantly finding new ways to make common problems seem more interesting <\/a>and approachable to users. Nevertheless, it is important to notice how effective these forms of entertainment have been over the years.<\/p>\n

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Recent studies suggest that people who play video games obtain several benefits, especially with their brain coordination (Image Wikimedia Commons)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Some studies have suggested that playing video games improve brain activity. \u00a0According to a\u00a0research made at the University of Toronto<\/a>, people who play action video games increase their eye-hand coordination. As a matter of fact, this coordination improvement is reflected mostly in activities such as practicing a sport, riding a bicycle, or even typing in a computer. In addition, other commonly associated benefits include stress relief, online socialization, better approach to problems, and exercise.<\/p>\n

For example, Tom Chatfield<\/a>, a British writer who talks about digital culture, discusses how video games implement a reward system that engages and motivates players. In addition, he explains\u00a0 how people who are engaged in the interactive experience, work and explore in order to earn a reward.<\/p>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KyamsZXXF2w[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

Video uploaded to Youtube by TED<\/p>\n

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Mobile applications aid users with specific needs (Image by jhaymesisvip on Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

In a similar way, numerous mobile applications have shown to be helpful <\/a>. For example, people who are in the need of increasing their mathematical knowledge might choose to download an application\u00a0like Math Drills<\/a>. However, in the application field there is no limit at to what a user could need. In other words, if a user requires something in particular, he would likely search and download an application that satisfies his needs.<\/p>\n

Eventually, as technology keeps improving<\/a>, there will be new ways to make user interactivity\u00a0even more engaging. Nevertheless, it will be an interesting challenge to find a crucial topic or issue which developers could\u00a0make an application or video game about it in the future.<\/p>\n

By Rafael Alfaro Martinez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since the introduction of numerous mobile apps and video games, interactive media has certainly become a new standard in our daily lives. Ranging from learning how to cook new recipes, or to sharpen our own math skills, developers are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29343,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222578,132763],"tags":[564,1185563,586028,6032],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issues-in-science","category-public-engagement","tag-computer-science","tag-interactive-media","tag-mobile-applications","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2014w210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}