Pros and cons of gaming

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Pros and cons of gaming

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Pros
Social connection
Only 3% of gamers are loners and never play with others, according to the
latest Interactive Australia report by Bond University. Many games involve
multi-person play, with players either in the same room or connected online.
And, says Dr Lawrence Kutner, director of the Harvard Medical School’s
Centre for Mental Health and Media and co-author of Grand Theft Childhood:
The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do,
games are a topic of conversation that allow kids to build relationships with
their peers. "Boys and girls view game playing as a social activity, not an
isolating one. For boys, game strategy is a topic of conversation. If you don’t
play, you’re left out of that ubiquitous conversation."

Better vision
Video games can give you an eye for detail. Researchers from the University
of Rochester found people who spent 30 hours training on action games over
a month spotted targets on a cluttered screen 80% of the time; non-gamers
managed this only 30% of the time. Allstate, a US insurer currently trialing
video games for older drivers, has found that game software can improve
visual skills important for safe driving. National Institutes of Health studies
have shown the software reduces crash risk by up to 50%.

Brain booster
No longer labelled simply as evil time-wasters, video games are now
considered a fast-track to a sharper mind. When researchers from Iowa State
University studied a group of laparoscopic surgeons, they found those who
played video games three or more hours a week were 27% faster and made
37% fewer errors. The surgeons were not playing games specifically
designed for them, according to Dr Douglas Gentile, one of the study’s
authors. "They were whatever off-the-shelf games they had played in the
past."

Painkiller
Games are also proving to be a powerful analgesic. "Conscious attention is
required for the experience of pain," says Professor David Patterson of the
University of Washington’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. "Virtual-

reality games are unusually attention-grabbing, leaving less attention to
process incoming pain signals." SnowWorld is the first custom-designed
virtual reality game for burns patients. Patients who play it while having
dressings changed report a 40-50% reduction in pain.

Cons
Obesity
New research from the University of Zaragoza in Spain shows that the risk of
being overweight increases with every hour teens spend on virtual play. Yet
games may also be part of the solution. A study from the University of Hong
Kong found playing games in which players mimic the actions involved in
sports are a good way of keeping fit. Players can use about the same energy
as they would on a brisk walk.

"Nintendo thumb"
Hours of repeated movements can damage tendons and nerves in the
thumbs. Physiotherapists are also alarmed by what slouching is doing to
young spines. "Most children sit on the floor playing games, or on their beds,
or in chairs that are generally too big for them," says physiotherapist Wendy
Emberson. "If they were at work, health and safety officers would have a
field day!

Cyber-hooked
"Recent research on 7000 online gamers found 12% experienced ‘addictive’
signs of playing," says Professor Mark Griffiths, director of the International
Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University. "In online gaming,
there is no end to the game and there is the potential to play endlessly."

Violence
Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia have found violent games
diminish players’ brain responses to images of real-life violence. And when
players were given the chance to "punish" a fake opponent, those who’d
recorded the lowest brain responses were most brutal. But does this relate to
real-life aggression? The few studies in this area usually base their measure

on "thoughts", says Jonathan Freedman from the University of Toronto. "In
some studies, if the person playing a violent game has more thoughts of
aggression, this is considered an indication that violent games cause
aggression." Freedman says this is a flimsy link. "After watching a war movie,
you probably have thoughts of war, but no-one would suggest you are more
likely to wage war."

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