Does your Heart Surgeon Play Online Games?

A research studying the difference between surgeons who play online games and their colleagues who don't, found out that the first group functions, the gamers-doctors, functions better under pressure and has improved suturing skills comparing to the non-playing surgeons. That Iowa State University research and other studies on the psychological and cognitive effects of playing online games were discussed in a special American Psychological Association convention held recently in Boston. 

Douglas Gentile of the Psychology Department at the Iowa State University studied the relations between two seemingly distant fields: laparoscopic surgeries and video games. The surprising conclusion is that a background in playing video games is a better predictor of surgical skills than the surgeon's age, practice and practical experience. 

Will those finding lead parents to push their kids towards playing online games instead of playing the piano? Not necessarily, since in the same convention, studies on the negative affect of online games, especially those that contained violent content, were revealed as well. A new study proved, once again, that violent video games support and strengthen positive perceptions on violence of their players. Students who frequently played violent games tended to be more aggressive, less compassionate and generally think highly of violence comparing to their counterparts who enjoyed playing less brutal games.