You want to be better? Tell your girlfriend you’re going to have to postpone your anniversary dinner in favor of Call of Duty. Tell her if she has a problem with it, she should take it up with Science.
A landmark study from Oxford University has found that kids who play video games in for an hour or less per day are not at risk of anti-social behavior, are better students, more emotionally stable, and less aggressive. So basically, video games turn you into the perfect human being.
However, video game use can be a slippery slope. The study found that those students who played video games for three or more hours were more hyperactive, more aggressive, and less attentive. So I think I’ll only play Mario Cart for two hours and 59 minutes tonight.
Andy Przybylski, an experimental psychologist and lead author of the study, indicated that 200 children from ages 12-13 were tested over six months and found zero links between moderate game playing of violent video games and real life aggression,
Says Przybylski,
“Compared with young people who don’t play at all and those who played a lot, those who played in moderation were less hyperactive and had fewer problems. We didn’t find any negative links with particular games, but some positive ones.”
“Those playing competitive and co-operative games did slightly better socially, as did those playing single-player games.”
This should be music to the ears of the two-thirds of American households that play video games.
Science is on our side.
[H/T The Australian]