Study: Playing Video Games Increases Participation in Sports

A new study coming from ESSEC aka École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales, a high profile French business school, shows that players who are interested in sports video games also participate more than others in real sports competitions, with the effect especially prominent amongst youngsters.

The study shows that 75% of those who are playing sports video games then go out and practice some kind of real life sport while 38 percent of them are actually engaged with the same sport that they have played on their computer or console. Expect parents who read the study to start buying their kids the various FIFA, NBA and NHL simulations in order to get them on the pitch and the court in real life. The study is a nice piece of news when the mainstream media, and often politicians, talk about video games as a plague upon youngsters which needs to be contained or actually eliminated.

Thierry Lardinoit, who is the head of the International Sports Marketing Chair and head of the Marketing Department at ESSEC, stated, “Video games are frequently demonized. We now know that these fears are unfounded. While it is difficult to fight against the consumption of video games, which has become more and more widespread among youth, we can use this consumption to further the realistic goal of encouraging physical activity among adolescents.”

Dr. Richard Wilson, the Chief Executive Officer of TIGA, a United Kingdom based trade body for the video games industry, who publicised the new study, added “More generally, video games can be used for educational and training purposes. A fifth of UK games business make educational or serious games, making an explicit feature of learning. A number of studies suggest that video games may help to promote skills such as visual and motor skills, strategic thinking, relationship building, computer literacy, collaboration, competition, multi-tasking and experiential learning.”