As if you didn't have enough reasons to keep playing bingo - now bingo can keep your mind in shape.
Apparently, younger and older bingo players have done better in tests measuring memory, accuracy and mental agility. And older players tested even better than younger players - younger bingo players had speed but older players were more accurate.
More than three million people play bingo in the UK, it's one of the favourite past times of many pensioners. Players have to be able to check off numbers quickly and accurately, and rapid hand-eye coordination is needed - skills that were thought to decline with age.
Julie Winstone is a researcher studying visual cognition at the University of Southampton. She has just finished up a study testing bingo players' mental agility. She studied responses from 112 people aged 18 to 40, and older people aged 60 to 82. Half of each group played bingo, half did not.
Ms. Winstone found that long-term mental activity (such as bingo) prevents the decline of cognitive abilities, such as speed and accuracy and recognition of patterns.
All bingo players were faster and more accurate than those who didn't play the game. But in certain tasks, older players did better than younger ones.
Kelvin Stacey, who is a spokesman Mecca Bingo, added, "for those people who play bingo, it gives them a great deal of interest and a great deal of excitement. People go and have a bit of fun, but they have to concentrate too. It's good for people. It stops them becoming a couch potato."
Read more about Bingo the Brain Boosting Game at the BBC.
