Playing Scrabble Is More Beneficial Than You Think – Here’s Why

2.8K

There’s only a handful of people who haven’t heard about Scrabble, or never played it – in general, if you ask someone whether they know this game, their response will be positive. Unfortunately, while many people know what it is and how to play it, the majority of them doesn’t understand how beneficial playing it actually is for both adults and kids. Its potential is lost somewhere at the back of the closet, long forgotten.

However, that’s about to change (at least for you), as we decided to share with the world how much good it can actually do – we conducted a little research and came up with some very interesting results. So, to find out more about how exactly Scrabble can be beneficial for you and your mental and physical health, all you have to do is keep reading.

Without any further ado, let’s just jump right into it.

It Makes You More Strategic

If you thought that Scrabble is just another one of the many word games available on the market, to win which you only need to have a wide range of vocabulary, think again. In fact, Scrabble is a very strategic game, more based on mathematics than on language knowledge per se – a two- or three-letter word can be worth more than ‘bingo’ (which happens when you use all seven letters – it results in 50 bonus points) if placed in the right spot.

Furthermore, suppose you look at the list of previous Scrabble World Champions. In that case, you will notice that most of them are not linguists or even native speakers of English – they are mathematicians, people who learned where to place words to gain the highest word score.

It Helps in Expanding Your Vocabulary

While Scrabble is not all about the language, we cannot deny that it does help expand your vocabulary – especially if you encounter some rare letters, which you don’t use as much in everyday conversations. You might not be aware of this, but there’s even a special dictionary devoted to Scrabble players, with more than 250.000 words included.

While in official competitions, it is usually forbidden to use dictionaries or any other tool (like Unscramblex or Scrabble Word Finder) that might help find the words, nothing is stopping you from doing it when playing online, or just for fun with some friends. Even if you won’t try to remember the words you find on purpose, there’s a high chance that your brain will do it anyway.

It Helps in Developing Your Cognitive Capacity

There have been several studies, which indicate that Scrabble might be a great way of developing one’s cognitive capacity and compensate for lack of education. What’s more, another study proved that regular cognitive exercises could help delay the development of conditions connected with dementia – such as Alzheimer’s.

By simply learning new words and their definitions, you can extend your knowledge in disciplines such as medicine, physics, history, or even philosophy – isn’t that amazing?

It Helps in Strengthening Social Skills

Playing board games in general, not only Scrabble, with your friends and family, can significantly increase your bond – especially if you are playing in teams, as it helps you learn how to cooperate with other people. After all, when you are playing as a team, you need to know how to compromise with each other.

What’s more, playing Scrabble with people you don’t know, for example, how you do it online, can help you develop and strengthen your social skills, which is something that many employers are looking for these days. This means that a game as simple as Scrabble can help you not only with your social and family life but also your work life.

It Helps You in Improving Your Concentration and Creativity

Another thing that Scrabble can help you with is creativity and concentration. As you probably know, during the game, you draw seven tiles – each of them has a letter written on it. Unless you draw a blank tile, which can serve as any letter, you need to rack your brain in order to find a word that will be composed of those letters. You need to think creatively, as the solution will not always be obvious – in fact, oftentimes, it will take a minute or two for it to come to your mind, which can be quite frustrating. However, the satisfaction you feel after coming up with the word compensates for all of it.

This is especially beneficial when it comes to kids – from a young age, it teaches them that not everything is obvious, and sometimes you need to let your creativity take over in order to find a solution.

It Increases Your Confidence and Makes You Feel Better Emotionally

In a game like Scrabble, each turn presents you with a new problem that you have to solve with logic, which makes you feel a sense of achievement, even without being a winner of the whole gameplay.

Another thing is that it helps you build confidence – especially in a situation where you are the only person being able to create a word from difficult letters. This, in turn, has a positive effect on your private and professional life, as it changes your attitude towards relatively ordinary setbacks and helps you make better decisions on an everyday basis.

The Bottom Line

With that being said, we have reached the end of our article. As you can see, the fact that Scrabble helps in improving your vocabulary range is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to its benefits. It also enables you to gain confidence, makes you feel better emotionally, develop your cognitive capacity, and so much more.

Unfortunately, many people don’t know about this and continue to perceive Scrabble as just another one of the word games available out there. Will that ever change, and people will start realizing what they have been missing out on? Maybe. The truth is that it’s something only time will tell.