Playing Video Games Improves Performance...
... If you are a surgeon. This is an old article, but cool:

Surgeons May Err Less By Playing Video Games

So, the next time you need surgery, be sure and ask your surgeon if he's a game fan. You'll have a 37% less chance of him zigging instead of zagging... at least, if it's labarascopic surgery.

Just out of curiosity, I was looking up a few of the other ways playing video games have proven (or are at least suspected of being) beneficial:

* Apparently, it's also good for pilots. Though flight-sim fans (many real-world pilots) believed that for years.

* And they've adapted game controllers for treatment of children with ADD, based on a NASA study in the 1990's.

* It's already well-known that active games like DDR (which in one case was a significant factor in a girl losing 95 pounds), or possibly the new Wii games, can be a very fun way to get exercise that we as a society are sorely lacking.

* Games are being used in health care to help treat certain physical conditions, and as a powerful distraction for children undergoing painful medical treatments.

* Researchers are demonstrating that games are, of course, a powerful training tool. Even plain ol' popular commercial games are

* And researchers at the University of Rochester have determined that action-gamers may be better drivers, due to better attunement to their surroundings. All that time spent trying to frag and avoid being fragged may be paying off, especially as you age. So kids, please get your grandpa hooked on some first-person shooters! For all our sakes!

* The Medical Virtual Reality Center is using the Unreal Tournament game engine to study (and hopefully treat) acrophobia and balance disorders.

* Dr. Scott Rigby and Dr. Richard Ryan believe that games fulfill certain deep psychological needs in players - specifically, the need for a feeling of competence, the need for autonomy and freedom, and the need for connectedness with other human beings (possible through online gaming). Besides just making the games "fun," in theory this might lead to greater self-confidence and even (gasp!) improved social skills in players. Of course, getting involved in a team sport would do the same thing... but hey, it's something.

None of this is exactly breaking news, but nice to see nonetheless, especially after enduring the last year or so of villification of videogames by politicians.
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:44 AM (Permalink)