Rebecca Sowell, communications specialist with Centurylink joins Cheddar News to talk about the rise in gaming. 

Wake Up With Cheddar

More Americans Are Turning To Video Games

if you're obsessed with gaming turns out you're not alone. According to a new study by century leak, the video game industry has benefited greatly from the pandemic. Seeing a 23% in growth. That same study found that 30% of respondents will spend an average of 10 hours gaming every week joining us for expert insight is Rebecca sal communications director at Centurylink specialists. Actually Rebecca welcome. Why are we seeing this uptick in gaming is a holdover from the pandemic. Right? So we actually found in our study that the number one reason that people are spending more time playing video games is actually because they enjoy the mental stimulation. 33% of our respondents said that it makes them think more strategically but you know there are other factors as well, you know due to the pandemic, we've all become very used to digital stimulation and connecting with friends and family virtually. Um There are also new trends on the rise like the metaverse and VR so we really expect to just see the gaming screen time go up from here. Rebecca I think non gamers generally think of gaming as a bad thing but you've also mentioned some of the good benefits. Um What else is great about gaming? Yeah. So studies show that video games can actually be beneficial for help. Um It can improve things like your hand eye coordination, your decision making, um social skills, problem solving. Um It can actually increase the gray matter in your brain. So when you really think about it, maybe a few hours behind the controller isn't so bad After all coming to age myself here back in the day, it was like Nintendo for me, you know, xbox, all that good stuff, but which gaming costs are the most popular right now? Right, so we found in our survey that the number one gaming console at the moment is mobile devices, 40% of our respondents said that that's how they prefer to play video games. And we asked them why they said that they enjoy the convenience and portability that their phones provide. Another interesting thing that we found is that Playstation is actually the second most popular console, according to 23% of our respondents. Um Playstation two is the best selling console of all time, according to status to. So it's really interesting that it fell behind mobile games. Okay, good to know it wasn't too far off with the Playstation, but Rebecca Sewell communications specialist at Centurylink, thank you so much.