Wicked Games in today's #FridayFunFacts
Hello and happy friday fun facts! Happy indeed because today it's all about games. Ready, player 1?
In the USA, there are 145 million people who call themselves gamers. That's more than the population of Russia!
Gaming has often gotten a bad wrap, but expert level gamers have been studied and found to have significantly higher cognitive functioning, better perception and motor control. They also had increased grey matter, and more connectivity in their brains.
It gets even better - surgeons who play at least 3 hours of games a week were found to make 37% fewer errors and perform 27% faster than non-gamer surgeons.
Games can even be used for academic studies on real-world topics. In 2005, World of Warcraft became a legitimate subject of study for epidemiologists (people who study the spread of disease.) A contagious disease called "Corrupted Blood" spread from the only part of the game it was supposed to affect to the entire game world. Epidemiologists were able to study the spread of Corrupted Blood and learn things about the spread of Avian Influenza and SARS. Terrorist researchers also got in on the game and used the cases of players intentionally infecting other players with Corrupted Blood to gain insights about the formation of terrorist groups in the real world.
Not only that, but games can have applications in medicine as well - A virtual reality game called Snow World that is played on Occulus rift has successfully been used to help burn patients manage pain when having their bandages changed.
