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How Video Games Can Help Your Career

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Video gamers

AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Here’s a piece of career advice that you won’t hear too often: spend more time playing video games. Specifically action-oriented games such as “Call of Duty 2.”

No, seriously.

According to a recent Bloomberg article, research has found that “[p]laying action video games primes the brain to make quick decisions.”

The study pitted two groups of against each other in a problem-solving exercise: those who had played fast-paced action games versus those who had played slower strategy games such as “The Sims 2.” The results: those who had played the action games “made decisions 25 percent faster than the strategy group, while answering the same number of questions correctly.”

The takeaway, according to the scientist who led the research team: “Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are in the middle of a battlefield, that can make all the difference.”

So now you know: if you want to improve the speed of your decision-making—a key leadership skill—bust out the Xbox and start shooting something. Or at least use this as an excuse the next time you get caught scratching a gaming itch during office hours!


Written by Phil Stott

September 15, 2010 at 10:04 am

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