Ottawa: A new research suggested that playing video games could have a surprising benefit – improving your reading skills.
Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan of Canada, said that gaming may improve peripheral attention skills, which are essential for reading ability.
‘Attention is an important part of successful reading,’ explained Shaylyn Kress, who led the study.
In the study, the researchers set out to understand how gaming affects reading skills.
Firstly, the team analyzed the most popular video games to determine the number of objects placed peripherally, versus in the middle, that players had to react to.
Next, a group of participants with varying levels of gaming experience completed a reading task that involved words flashing up on a screen in one of eight possible locations.
The words included well-known words that were easy to ready, as well as fake words that required ‘sounding out’ to read.
The results revealed that participants who had played games with more peripheral objects were better at reading both the known words and the fake words quickly and efficiently.
The researchers hope their findings will lead to better video game designs that can promote healthier habits.
The study comes shortly after research revealed that violent video games do not make players more aggressive in real life, the Daily Mail news reported.
