How much time do you spend gaming in a day? A week? A year?
Granted, this may be time you cherish. And there is a growing number of people who even go as far as make a living out of playing games, so nobody can really tell you it’s a waste of your time necessarily.
However, it can be very useful to illustrate some other benefits which could be obtained by freeing up that time you are spending playing games. Look on it as a list of alternatives that may broaden your horizons rather than a critique of your current lifestyle.
An online local services marketplace by the name of Bidvine went to the trouble of enlisting the help of its qualified partners in various areas, including the areas of language tutors, personal trainers, music teachers, people working in construction, and dance teachers. Their goal was to find out how long learning a new skill or completing a task within a profession could probably take, allowing us to make an apples to apples comparison. Here are the findings below.
On average, the two hours that one may spend gaming per day could be used to:
- Learn a foreign language (French was used in the study) in six months
- Learn to play the guitar in twelve weeks (the basics of course, studying an instrument is potentially a lifelong journey)
- Properly train for a marathon in ten weeks
- Completely re-model your bathroom by yourself in seven weeks
- Learn the basics of how to dance salsa (the basics but properly, give yourself a sound foundation) in four weeks
This survey was participated in by more than 2,000 members of the public, 55% of which self-identified as gamers in some form, and the results came in that on average these people spend 2 hours a day gaming, including PC, consoles and mobile app games. Thirty-four percent answered they spend more than 5 hours a day gaming. Out of those who identified themselves as a gamer, two thirds (65%) identified themselves as male, a third (34%) as female and 1% didn’t disclose their gender.
All of the people responding had at least some experience with gaming, according to Bidvine.com co-founder, Russ Morgan.
“We really don’t want to shame people for gaming, because it’s a great way for people to unwind and have fun. We thought it would be interesting though, to find out in relative terms what could be achieved within the same timeframe.
“We hope that these results will encourage people to try something new, learn a new hobby and finally get round to ticking some things off of their bucket or to-do list. I think most don’t realise how little time you actually need to allocate to learning a new skill, just think, in six months’ time you could be sat in a restaurant speaking fluent French to your waiter!”
