Scientists know that exercise strengthens your muscles and reading sharpens your memory. A new study suggests that a surprising activity may also help build certain life skills: playing video games.
Matthew Barr is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow in Scotland who studies how people learn. He recruited 16 college students to play Minecraft and other video games several times a week for eight weeks. For comparison, a control group of students didn’t play any video games. Barr asked both groups questions designed to measure how well they communicated, solved problems, and adapted to changing situations.
By the end of the study, more people who played video games improved in the areas Barr measured than did in the control group. “Playing video games is like exercising your brain,” Barr says. “The more you practice using your brain, the stronger it gets.”