New Study Shows That Playing Mario Kart, Call of Duty Together Has Positive Effects for Couples

We’ve all seen a Facebook or Youtube video with this scenario: guy is too busy playing video games, his girlfriend gets all angry and trashes his gaming console. Honestly girl, that is so immature. You know what could be a mature response to the “boyfriend-is-too-busy-with-his-games-and-has-no-time-for-me-anymore” problem? Play games with him.

A recent study conducted by Century Link, which surveyed 1000 respondents, shows that 1 in 3 people from the 18 to 24 years old bracket claimed that playing video games together with their partners left a positive impact on their romantic relationships. Of the games mentioned in the survey, Nintendo’s Mario Kart—which involves players tossing shells and leaving banana peels to trip up your opponents and make them eat dust (or basically doing everything to sabotage your competition)—was found to be the game that has most positively affected the relationships of the couples that played it together.

The two other games most mentioned by respondents were the first-person shooter Call of Duty and open-world RPG Skyrim. So yes, sabotaging racecars, shooting people, and battling dragons are a great way of spicing up your romantic life. Why treat your partner to a fancy dinner when you can just get them to play Mario Kart with you? (I kid, you should still take them out to dinner sometimes. Lol)

On the other hand, it was the exact opposite for respondents aged 55+ years old: only 10% of respondents for this age bracket held the same belief as the 18 to 24 year-olds. Dr. James Gaskin, video game developer and professor at Brigham Young University, has an explanation for this:

“Romantic partners from the millennial generation grew up with video games as a large part of their lives. Therefore, gaming is simply more natural and accepted. Whereas with older generations, a partner who played video games was perceived as juvenile and irresponsible.”

Ryan M. Earl, senior associate therapist at the Chicago Center for Relationship Counseling, affirms the findings of the study and believes that gaming can be therapeutic for couples. He says,

”Video games can help people work together for a common goal, share challenges, compete, joint problem-solve, and more. Video games, like anything else, can be a shared activity, and shared activities can foster intimacy between people.”

And to this we say, ”The couple that games together, stays together.”

Source: Nintendo Life