Growing up in a broken home is hard on anyone. Further, when the big split occurs can make a difference as well, mutating the reactions and resultant emotions that occur. For teenagers, they may withdraw into their own worlds, keeping their feelings to themselves. Luckily for me, my parents divorced when I was three and I literally grew up not knowing the difference.

And the best part: by the time I got my Nintendo Entertainment System, my parents were understandably eager to get back on the dating scene. My grandmother sent this amazing gray box from her home in Honolulu for our Christmas circa 1988, and both my brother and I were hooked.

So, in the eyes of an exhausted adult pining for some alone time, the NES and video games in general were a lifesaver that bought them at least an hour of peace and quiet. After the Video Game Crash of 1983, it took a lot of convincing on Nintendo's part to get reluctant store owners to stock the NES. In many ways, the world forgot why video games were compelling in the first place and in 1988, many people still didn't have a clue what the big deal was. Sure, my parents discovered that the NES had secret babysitter powers that could be summoned at a moment's notice, but for me, I was beginning to discover my inner ninja and it would only progress as I got older.

But now that I'm a single 30-something with a kid I get a lot of...

And You're How Old?

Even in the gaming industry's infancy, video games were dismissed as a "child's toy". In fact, my own parents remain utterly oblivious to the medium to this day. In their eyes, my brother and I playing our NES looked like two kids staring intently into a TV screen, only making a sound when something nebulous happened onscreen. Predictably, our playtime was limited to one hour a day on the weekends with the rare 30-minute weekday session thrown in if needed, mostly because our parents didn't see any value in the activity beyond keeping us quiet for a little bit.

Even as a kid, playing games like Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, and Adventures of Lolo did a lot more than keep me quiet. There have been studies that suggest that video games provide multiple cognitive and mental health benefits, but after 25 years of gaming, I experienced:

Heightened Hand-Eye Coordination