LIFELONG LEARNING
Get In The Game! Top 5 Social Video Games to Bring People of All Ages Together Are you looking for a new way to connect with your friends, kids and grandkids? One of the best options you may not have considered is playing video games together. There was a time when these games were intentionally created only for young adults. But times have changed, and now there are thousands of social video games that are easy to play and specifically designed for people of all ages to interact with each other. In fact, a recent study on senior gaming showed that 44% of Americans age 50+ now enjoy video games at least once a month. That’s nearly 51 million gamers and counting who are benefiting from the digital age and forming new relationships online to stave off social isolation. Growing Bolder’s Marc Middleton and Bill Shafer upped their gaming skills, playing with a 31-year-old livestreamer and tabletop game designer named Mike Lavoie, known as “MeatSim9” on Twitch. This trio discussed why social video games are a great way to form intergenerational relationships. “It gives you something to converse about,” Lavoie said. “It gives you a context for having a conversation that probably goes off the rails, and you talk about lots of other things, too. But it helps give you that commonality very quickly of, ‘We’re going through this gaming experience together,’ so we’ve established this baseline, and now we can go off on all sorts of tangents while we play.” For a livestreamer such as Lavoie, who has made countless friendships through gaming, it is worth the time to
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find the right game to suit one’s passions, no matter your age. “There’s just something for everyone,” Lavoie explained. “I think that’s one of the big things that people think about games: ‘Oh, video games aren’t for me; board games aren’t for me.’ There’s just so many options of games that it’s just a matter of finding out which one is for you. Games have given me so much my whole life — like different friendships, people I would’ve never met if they weren’t also interested in games.” A study conducted by North Carolina State University, “Successful Aging Through Digital Games: Socioemotional Differences Between Older Adult Gamers and Non-Gamers,” showed seniors who play video games regularly or occasionally report better overall emotional well-being. Dr. Vonda Wright, MD, MS, a renowned expert on healthy aging, told Growing Bolder that gaming can help increase the number of healthy years we have later in life. “Gaming is a complex activity that can stave off the fogginess that can happen with aging,” Wright said. “And when done with others, it decreases social isolation, which is a problem for people as we get older.” When it comes to games that are easy to learn with a low barrier to entry, Lavoie recommends buying a Nintendo Switch or a Nintendo Wii. Invite your children and grandchildren over for a night of gaming, starting with one of these five games:
