Video Games as Painkillers
Us voces have certainly discovered that certain types of game playing can aid us with trying to get some much-needed rest while sick. Especially for dealing with certain types of pain – let’s say, for example, stomach cramps – the distraction has a particular placebo effect when it comes to setting pain aside.
Well, it looks like it may not actually simple placebo effect, new research seems to be showing actual analgesic effects!
When children and adults with acute and chronic pain become immersed in video game action, they receive some analgesic benefit, and pain researchers presenting at the American Pain Society’s annual scientific meeting reported that virtual reality is proving to be effective in reducing anxiety and acute pain caused by painful medical procedures and could be useful for treating chronic pain.
"Virtual reality produces
…
Obama Calls For Focus On Science, Technology, Engineering And Math – Gaming Industry Forms STEM Cell
Much like Voltron, the mechanical giants of the gaming industry are coming together in a towering colossus to bring in the government dough. The core is the issue is Obama’s STEM program, an attempt to bring the upcoming generation into the scientific and engineering fields. You know, the things what keep a country strong and powerful.
Toward this end, the Administration sees video games as a potential way to educate and inspire the nation’s youth. Sony, Microsoft, the ESA, and the MacArthur Foundation, among others, agree. Together, they have arranged a series of video game competitions under the STEM program’s principles.
Read the press release at PR Newswire.
World’s Coolest Virtual Reality Chamber Helps Researchers
Scientists get all the cool toys. Not only do they get to play with a world-destroying supercollider, but now the labcoat set has themselves a giant virtual reality chamber with more speakers and screens than an audiophile’s wet dreams.
It’s called the AlloSphere, and the good folks at the University of California use the all-encompassing sensory overload device to step inside their data and see the information in a whole new way.
The biggest problem with modern science isn’t collecting data, but figuring out what it means. Scientists can gather so much information that they become lost in it, unable to see patterns or that one little number that stands out from all the rest. Displaying the data in new ways, such to use all the senses, helps to overcome this challenge.
Scientific American has the story.
Action Gaming Improves Eyesight, Destroys Faith in Humanity
Recent studies from the University of Rochester and Tel Aviv University have shown that playing action games like Unreal Tournament and Call of Duty improves the eyesight of players. The upgrades come in the form of something called “contrast perception,” or the ability to distinguish between similar colours and shades of colour. Casual games that didn’t grab their players by the eyeballs and suck them into a whirling maelstrom of fast action, say, The Sims, had no effect on vision.
The improvements remain for up to two years after training. The damage done by contact with Xbox Live users may well be permanent.
You can check out the detailed report in the March 29th issue of Nature, right over here.
Virtual Worlds as Teaching Tools
As gamers, we know games are incredible learning tools. Just look at everything you’ve memorized to pwn noobs in AV, right? Hell, you knew what I meant when I said “AV.” That’s learning. On and off, the educational community has been considering the potential of games to teach real lessons in science, math, and reading, but the efforts have always been local and half-hearted. With the rise of social gaming (like, say, the World of Warcraft that Alterac Valley comes from), the scale of gaming has changed. This change allows more gamers to experience the lessons a game might teach.
The educational video games Food Force, a U.N.-produced game on the mechanics of food aid distribution, and Whyville, another game that takes place in a virtual world, each has about 4 million players, a number that far exceeds the number of students graduating each year …
Categories
- Fiction
- Humor
- Let's Play
- Mods and Patches
- News
- Reviews
- Strategy Guides
- Videos
Recent Comments
- Nelson Williams BRB, porting all animes to Skyrim....
- Nelson Williams You know I love taking unverifiable stories from Reddit and ...
- Nelson Williams All the old arguments are in there, too. Desensitizes child...
- Nelson Williams Ever hear the term, "chilling effect?" This is what it mean...
- JC I think you need some soup....
- Nelson Williams Yet, our schools still knock around with heavy books and bor...
Archives
Blogroll
- Game Politics - Where politics and video games collide.
- Mill Avenue Vexations - A gothic, occult thriller by Kyt Dotson—burning rubber where angels fear to tread.
Meta