Are video games actually good at improving our reaction times? According to some studies, if you play video games regularly, you might notice improvements in your reflexes.
Video games have become a part of our everyday lives. They are played by millions around the world every day. In fact, they are now considered to be a form of sport.
Video games are designed to improve players’ skills and reflexes. This is done through practice and repetition. For example, playing a shooting game requires quick reactions and coordination. The same can be said for many other types of games.
However, there are also skeptics who claim that this isn’t true. These people say that gaming doesn’t really help with improving our reflexes.
In this article, we discuss whether video gamers actually do have faster reflexes, or whether it’s a myth!
Do Gamers Have Faster Reflexes?
Some people believe that gaming helps us develop better reflexes. While others disagree. The truth is that both sides have valid points. Let’s take a look at what each side has to say.
A study at Central Washington University which included 87 individuals between the ages of 18-40 tried to ‘examine the differences in types of reaction time to a visual oddball stimulus between gamers and non gamers’.
The study was quite simple. The individual needed to sit at a computer with a mouse. The screen then changed colors, and at a random moment, an object would appear.
The individual needed to click down on the mouse immediately. This measures the reaction time between the object appearing and the mouse is clicked.
The results were interesting.
The data showed that gamers who played more than four hours of games per week had a quicker reaction time to non-gamers, which suggests that gamers have a quicker reaction time.
The issue with this study is that it does not actually prove that gamer’s have an overall quicker reaction time.
While it is true in the study that gamer’s have a quicker reaction time in-game, it does not mean that gamer’s overall, in day to day life, have a quicker reaction time.
There really needs to be more studies focused on whether gamer’s have better reflexes in day to day situations.
Like, does a truck driver have a better reaction time than a gamer? Does a gamer have a better reaction time than someone who plays baseball?
These are the types of studies that need to be identified before people can make truth claims about reflexes.
However, there is good news for gamers. While the debate about whether gamer’s actually have better reflexes is still undecided, there are other studies that show that gaming can actually have a good impact on an individual’s ability to learn.
This means that while gamer’s might not have better reflexes, the ability to quickly decide-maker and analyze a situation may be beneficial in day to day life.
Gamer’s Learn Quicker
University psychologists Davood G. Gozli and Jay Pratt argue that playing videos can improve the attention of a person.
A study posted in the Human Movement Science suggests that people who play video games were able to learn sensory-motor skills quicker than non-video game players.
The result of the study showed that video game players learned spatial and movement rules quicker than non-gamers.
That’s because it took non-gamers extra time to understand the rules of the game, while video game players were able to understand much quicker.
That means in certain situations, video game players are better learners, because they can focus on the task and are able to recognize the important information quicker.
For a gamer, they need to understand the important rules of the game, so that they can win, so from a technical standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. What is interesting, is that this type of learning can be applied to outside of gaming.
This means that gamers may have the ability to learn certain types of information quicker than non-gamers, and that their reflexes aren’t necessarily better.
But they’re able to understand the rules more quickly, which gives them an advantage over non-gamers.
These findings are interesting because for a long time, it was thought that gamers have a lower attention span. The findings show the opposite, and that the gamers are actually able to learn sensory-motor skills faster than non-gamers.
The Brain
Most people can agree that gaming can have a positive impact on the brain.
When someone is gaming, they are constantly decision-making and learning from their mistakes. They need to analyze and assess not only visual information but audio information, too.
In fact, a recent study suggests that gamers can learn a new language twice as fast as non-gamers.
The study required individuals to recognize vocabulary words of unfamiliar made-up speech, and it took gamer’s only 20 minutes, while it took non-gamers 40 minutes.
This study suggests that video games are actually improving people’s ability to learn information.
While this study does not show any benefit to physical reflexes, it clearly shows that mental reflexes increase due to gaming, because gamers are able to solve problems faster than non-gamers.
Summary
While there is no conclusive evidence that proves that gamers have better reflexes, there is some evidence that gaming can have a great impact on a person’s ability to learn.
In addition to being able to learn faster, gamers are also able to process information more efficiently.
Gamers are able to process information at a higher rate, and that leads to faster mental reflexes. However, it’s still unclear if gamers have better physical reflexes or not.
There is no scientific proof that says one way or another. That means that a lot more studies need to occur before someone can truly say whether gamer’s have better reflexes, or not.
The good news is that gaming isn’t all bad. Gaming does have some positive impact on the brain, and does help with decision-making!
My name is Ashley Newby and I want to put integrity back into esports and get the hype surrounding them paramount once more. During my teenage years, I happened to stumble across a Street Fighter tournament online and I was hooked.
From that day, I have kept up with and watched many tournaments including Valorant, Super Smash Bros, and League of Legends. I even got to compete in my first one earlier this year!
