Can WoW Make You Smarter?

A recent study showed that playing WoW can actually make better surgeons and whiners forum posters think more effectively.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison looked at a random sample of 2,000 chat room posts about “World of Warcraft” to see what the players were discussing. The research found the game encouraged scientific thinking.

In line with this, there was also a study that concluded that surgeons who actually play WoW are better with their jobs.

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.

The facts (Those who were WoW gamers were)

• 27 percent faster at advanced surgical procedures
• had 37 percent fewer errors than those who didn’t.

And now, when they looked at 2,000 whiners chat room posters, they found out “that gamers are creating an environment in which informal scientific reasoning practices are being learned,” said Sean Duncan, a doctoral student who worked on the “World of Warcraft” report.

Second round of facts (on the forum posters)

• 86 percent, shared knowledge to solve problems 
• 58 percent, used systematic and evaluative processes, researchers found.

There must be a reason for the madness.

Tell your parents to give you more moolah for the monthly subscriptions! Yeah!

Via MSNBC