Video games are now the biggest entertainment industry in the world.
$47 billion dollars worth of video games were sold worldwide in 2014 that's more than both
the music and film industries.
And teenagers are now more addicted to video game than ever before, a staggering 94 percent
of teenage girls and 99 percent of teenage boys play video games on a regular basis.
With so many modern games requiring fast reaction times and lightning quick reflexes - does
playing video games actually have any real and lasting effects on our reaction times
in day to day life?
Let's find out.
Most contemporary video games such as Call of Duty, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and hundreds
more, require extremely fast processing of sensory information to play.
In this respect they push the limits of how fast the human brain can process information
and make decisions based on that information.
Video games force our brains to think and respond faster than is needed in typical,
everyday life.
This is compounded by the fact that most video games offer incentives for players to react
even faster to situations; in most games, faster reactions lead to rewards such as increased
kills and faster lap times, to name but a few examples.
Now they say, practice makes perfect.
And it's undeniably true.
When we do anything in life, electrical impulses are sent between the neurons in our brain.
And the more we do that thing, the stronger the link becomes between those neurons and
the faster they can communicate.
Which subsequently speeds up the rate at which we perform the task.
This is exactly how practice improves performance.
Practice actually alters the physical structure of our brain cells to quicken the flow of
information.
So if that logic is true with everything else we do in life, shouldn't it be the same for
video games.
Should it not be the case that the more we play fast paced video games the faster our
reaction times should be in everyday tasks.
Well yes.
Just like with everything else we do, playing video games does indeed strengthen the links
between the neurons in our brains that are related to processing and reacting to information.
This was proved to be true by a recent study by the department of Brain and Cognitive science
at the University of Rochester.
The researchers took dozens of 18 to 25 year-olds who where not ordinarily video game players;
god knows how they found these peculiar teenagers that don't play video games.
They then split the subjects into two groups.
One group played 50 hours of two particularly fast-paced games, Unreal Tournament and Call
of Duty 2.
The other group played 50 hours of the significantly slower simulation game The Sims 2.
Afterwards both teams were asked to complete several tasks that were designed to test their
reaction and cognitive thinking skills.
For example, the participants were asked to look at a screen that showed a bunch of erratically
moving dots moving left and right across the screen.
The participants were tested on how quickly they could answer a simple question.
Are the dots moving left or right.
They also underwent auditory reaction tests to analyse how quickly both teams reacted
to sound as well as visual information.
And the result?
Well, the team that played the fast moving action games were a whole 25 percent faster
at answering the questions and completing the tests than the other team who had spent
the morning building virtual houses with pretty white picket fences.
But the the action games didn't just improve their reaction times, the researchers found
that they also answered the questions more accurately than the other team.
The research team concluded that players of fast paced video games would prove to be much
better at critical, real-life situations that require fast reactions and quick thinking.
Such as performing surgery or being on a battlefield.
And I do mean a real battlefield, not one made of pixels.
Reacting to a situation is all about how fast we can come to a decision about the challenge
we have been presented with.
Our brain does this by rapidly gathering information from our surroundings, both visual and auditory.
It then puts this information together and computes the best possible way to react.
For example, when driving, if a car pulls out in front of you from a junction without
warning.
Your brain rapidly makes a decision based on how fast you are traveling in relation
to the other car as well as other factors, to determine whether or not you should slam
on the brakes.
All this information is passed between neurons in our brain, in a few milliseconds.
However, people who regularly play video games and have therefore strengthened the connections
between those neurons (those connections are called axons by the way) would be able to
process this information significantly faster and make the same decision in a fraction of
the time as a non-video game player.
Potentially saving lives, in some situations.
So when your parents ask you why you spend so much time playing video games, simply tell
them you're practicing for a life or death situation.