A recent study highlights the benefits of gaming and found some pretty
amazing results. Surgeons who spend at least a few hours a week playing video
games make one-third fewer errors in the operating room than doctors who do not
game...So before you go under the knife; quiz your surgeon on the latest game
news :D
Checkout the
original post:
METHOD 4: VIDEO GAMES
Video games could save your life. Surgeons who spend at least a few hours a week
playing video games make one-third fewer errors in the operating room than
nongaming doctors do. Indeed, research has shown that video games can improve
mental dexterity, while boosting hand-eye coordination, depth perception and
pattern recognition. Gamers also have better attention spans and
information-processing skills than the average Joe has. When nongamers agree to
spend a week playing video games (in the name of science, of course), their
visual-perception skills improve. And strike your notions of gamers as
outcasts: one researcher found that white-collar professionals who play video
games are more confident and social.
Of course, we cannot talk about the effects of video games without mentioning
the popular theory that they are responsible for increasing real-world violence.
A number of studies have reinforced this link. Young men who play a lot of
violent video games have brains that are less responsive to graphic images,
suggesting that these gamers have become desensitized to such depictions.
Another study revealed that gamers had patterns of brain activity consistent
with aggression while playing first-person shooter games.
This does not necessarily mean these players will actually be violent in real
life. The connections are worth exploring, but so far the data do not support
the idea that the rise of video games is responsible for increased youth
violence.
On the Frontier
Video games activate the brain’s reward circuits but do so much more in men than
in women, according to a new study. Researchers hooked men and women up to
functional MRI machines while the participants played a video game designed for
the study. Both groups performed well, but the men showed more activity in the
limbic system, which is associated with reward processing. What is more, the men
showed greater connectivity between the structures that make up the reward
circuit, and the better this connection was in a particular player, the better
he performed. There was no such correlation in women. Men are more than twice as
likely as women are to say they feel addicted to video games."