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Games save lives!

Not wasting our time after all. And Lara croft would agree

Which of the following have you heard? '’Wasting time on the PlayStation again?' 'You love that XBOX more than you love me!' 'Haven't you got work to do?' ad lib to fade...

We've all been hit with the 'gaming is evil / a waste of time' arguments at some point but we now have a winning comeback. We're not gaming. We're working on our scientific thinking... and training to be surgeons.

A recent report for the American Psychological Association has found that gaming can be good for us. For example, the best surgeons are the ones who play most games.

'Studies by Iowa State University psychologist Douglas Gentile and Dr. James Rosser, head of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, compared surgeons who play video games to those who don't.

'The edge went to gamer surgeons, they found, even after taking into account differences in age, years of medical training and the number of laparoscopic surgeries performed. In laparoscopic procedures, surgeons use small incisions, thin surgical tools and video cameras to see inside the body.

'One study of 33 laparoscopic surgeons found that those who played video games were 27 percent faster at advanced surgical procedures and made 37 percent fewer errors than those who didn't.'

Another study, by the University of Wisconsin, took a look at World of Warcraft, perhaps the ultimate time-sucking gaming experience at the moment. The University's researchers studied 2,000 WoW chat room posts to monitor topics under discussion.

What they found was that the game 'encouraged scientific thinking, like using systems and models for understanding situations and using math and testing to investigate problems,' as the Guardian reported.

'The vast majority of the discussion participants, 86 per cent, shared knowledge to solve problems and more than half, 58 per cent, used systematic and evaluative processes.'

Which basically means WoW players tend to work together to progress further. Which is, admittedly, kind of the point. Still, two good arguments for playing.

You might just want to hide the generalist findings about students who played violent games tend to be more violent than those who play nonoviolent games, and the bit about kids playing games getting poorer school results and being at greater risk of obesity...

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