Psychologists: Video games not all bad

U.S. researchers said that playing video games enhances a surgeon's skills. It makes them perform their jobs efficiently with fewer mistakes.

The researchers from Iowa State University studied how video games affect the surgeons who play them, but does it improve their work? They analyzed 33 surgeons specializing in laparoscopy, which involves the use of a thin-lighted tube to inspect and treat various conditions in the pelvic and abdominal cavities. The study was headed by the psychologist Douglas Gentile. Gentile and his team found that the surgeons who played video games were 27 per cent faster at advanced surgical procedures and made 37 per cent fewer errors compared to the surgeons who don’t play video games. Douglas Gentile told Reuters: "This means that games are not 'good' or 'bad' but are powerful educational tools and have many effects we might not have expected they could." This study was part of a number of studies about how video games affect the people who play them and were discussed at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Boston. The Iowa State study also involved high school and college students and found the following results: • The students who played violent games tend to be more hostile, less forgiving and consider violence more normal in most cases than those who played non-violent type of games. • The students who played “pro-social” type of games were involved in fewer fights at schools and more helpful to others. In another study at Fordham University, the researchers measured the effect of learning a new video game on problem-solving skills in middle-school-age children. They found that playing video games helped the students improve their cognitive and perceptual skills. The Iowa State researchers concluded in their report:

Certain types of video games can have beneficial effects improving gamers' dexterity as well as their ability to problem-solve -- attributes that have proven useful not only to students but to surgeons.