Did your parents ever tell you that video games will rot your brain? Well, I'm here to tell you that they were wrong. Completely and utterly wrong! Not only are video games an entertaining pastime, but they also can quickly be turned into an asset for our education.
That’s right—we can harness the power of video games to remember nearly any type of information. All that time spent saving princesses, racing go karts, or waging intergalactic battles can in fact be put to good use in school.
Good Tips for Studying are Hard to Find
When I was growing up, the only study advice offered to me was to re-read or re-write the material. I would sit down for hours at a time and dedicate myself to rapid-fire repetition. But even after innumerable repetitions, some information simply refused to stick in my mind.
The most frustrating part was that there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. I just had to hope that the information would magically spring forward during the test. A lot of the time it didn’t, and I’d end up staring at the test question as dumb-faced as Patrick Star—wondering where the information had gone.
In Med School I Discovered the Best Methods of Studying
It wasn’t until my back was against the wall in medical school that I figured out a foolproof system for memorizing any amount of information. Best of all, the system is based on movies, TV shows, and video games. I owe much of my success in medicine to my love of video games. Mario, Link, and a plethora of other virtual heroes helped me memorize countless infectious diseases and pass my medical boards.
But we won’t worry about learning the different types of bacteria, viruses, prions, and fungi in this article. Instead, we're going to focus on spelling. Our favorite plumber can help us ace any spelling bee.
Spelling Is Not Straightforward
The English language is complicated—I before E except after C? Yeah, tell that to your weird neighbor whose leg seized on the glacier. The reason most people have such a difficult time with spelling is that illogically placed letters easily fall right out of our heads. Letters by themselves are boring and meaningless, and often require extra effort to stick in our heads.
If You Can Picture It, You Can Remember It
It’s time to ditch those old methods of mindlessly studying material on repeat. In order to reliably retain and retrieve information, our brains require memory cues. A cue serves as a reminder come test time. Such cues are most effective when in the form of pictures—specifically, memorable and humorous pictures.
Our brains glom onto visual stimuli far more readily than they digest word after word, page after page. After all, most of us know the experience of forgetting a name long before forgetting a face. I rarely forget what an actor or character looks like, but names often trip me up—especially in games like Donkey Kong Country where most of the characters' names start with the letter K.
Break the Word Down into Pictures
So how do we turn words into pictures? We break them down into digestible pieces and then turn those smaller pieces into picture reminders.
Break the word down into smaller chunks, like syllables, or even further into letters. Next, think up a unique picture to represent each fragment or letter. In the example above I used a simple word association for D and E—a dog and an eel, animals that those letters remind me of. I split the middle of the word into a shark FIN and a creepy clown (IT). Then, at the end of the word, I decided to use phonetic letter associations. I created pictures based on the sound of the letters—an elf for EL and a glass of wine for Y.
Link the Pictures Together
After you create a series of unique images, link the pictures together and place them inside a familiar environment for safekeeping. Keep it simple. If you already remember that definitely starts out with the letters D-E, scrap the dog and the eel and picture a shark finned–clown stalking an elf drinking wine.
Anchor the Pictures Inside a Familiar Location
We don’t want the pictures just floating around in space, however. They need to be anchored down and readily accessible. We need to be able to find the information come test time, not just hope the right answer shows up.
Fortunately, this is where our favorite entertainment comes into play. Anyone who enjoys movies, TV shows, and video games already possesses a wide array of mental filing cabinets for storage. We can harness nearly any virtual environment to store information. Today we are going to use Bob-omb Battlefield inside Mario 64, but feel free to use any title you wish.
Storing Information in Bob-omb Battlefield
Let’s stash our first word right next to those cute little pink bob-ombs at the start.
Imagine a dog (D) loading an eel (E) into the cannon while a shark finned–clown creeps behind an elf drinking wine.
Perhaps you’ve been struggling to correctly spell the word license. You’ll never get the C and S mixed up again if you imagine a lion (L) chasing Mario as he tries to deliver ice (ICE) to the chain chomp, who’s guarding a bottle of Hennessey (NSE). The simpler the picture, the easier it will be to remember.
If the word camouflage trips you up, just picture Mario at the bottom of King Bob-omb’s mountain. Visualize Mario launching himself up a camo (CAMO) U-shaped half pipe (U) to the top of a flag (FLAG) embroidered with an elephant (E).
Finally, on the peak of the mountain, remembering how to spell conscience is a breeze if you just picture Mario’s encounter with King Bob-omb.
Picture the explosive king wearing a convict outfit (CON) and holding test tubes while he practices science (SCIENCE), to represent conscience.
Between the main castle grounds, fifteen main worlds, three cap levels, and three boss levels lies enough sprawling space to ace any spelling bee or vocabulary test. The time we spend playing video games is far from a waste. Our favorite games have the ability to supercharge our memory and propel our learning capacity to new heights.
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