Boost Office Productivity By Playing Video Games Together

New research from Brigham Young University found that playing video games together at work could boost office productivity.

Scientists found that newly-formed work teams experienced a 20% increase in productivity on subsequent tasks after they played video games together for just 45 minutes, according to The Times of India.

“To see that big of a jump – especially for the amount of time they played – was a little shocking,” Greg Anderson, an associate professor at BYU, said. “Companies are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on team-building activities, and I’m thinking, go buy an XBox,” he added.

Over 350 individuals were recruited for the study and then organized into 80 teams. No pre-existing relationships existed throughout the teams. Each team played a geocaching competition game called Findamine.

After their first round, teams were randomly assigned to one of three tasks- team video gaming, “goal training” or quiet homework time. Each lasted for 45 minutes.

From The Times: “The researchers found that while the goal-training teams reported a higher increase in team cohesion than the video-gaming teams, the video gamers increased actual performance on their second round of Findamine significantly, raising average scores from 435 to 520.”

“Team video gaming may truly be a viable, and perhaps even optimal, alternative for team building,” said Mark Keith, associate professor at BYU.

However, the research also found that team members with prior familiarity with the game, could become competitive, reinforcing biases, leading to the development of negative relationships.