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Hand-eye coordination

Thumbs that do what your eyes saw.

Duck Hunt with the Zapper. Punch-Out!! with Mike Tyson's uppercut coming. Your eyes catch it, your hands answer, and the gap between the two is the whole game.

This is the one most people mean when they say games are good for you, and it is also the one with the best evidence: action-game players do score better on perception and attention tasks than people who do not play.

Train it on purpose

1. Play one level with a rule: no panic presses. Every button has a reason.
2. Drop the difficulty and chase clean, not fast. Speed comes once the movement is right.
3. Swap to a game with a different input, a light gun or a racing game, and notice how long your hands take to catch up.

Off the couch

It shows up in sport, driving, cooking with three pans going, catching the glass your mate knocked off the bar before it hits the floor. Small, physical competence reads as confidence, and confidence is attractive. Nobody has ever been put off by someone who is good with their hands.

Sources

1. Bediou, B., Adams, D. M., Mayer, R. E., Tipton, E., Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2018). Meta-analysis of action video game impact on perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills. Psychological Bulletin, 144(1), 77-110. doi:10.1037/bul0000130