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We hear so much about how gaming is bad for society, it turns us all into psychotic dribbling murderers and antichrists as well as encouraging bad language, bad hygiene, bad diet, bad grammar and most likely unsafe masturbatory techniques....
But recently released research by Keele University shows that playing video games can give people a better tolerance for pain. Especially if the games are violent.
Click after the break to find out more. And if you are in pain click violently....
The study, which explored the use of violent video games as a pain-reliever, demonstrates the impact the virtual world can have on pain perception.
A study of 40 volunteers found that playing violent FPS enabled participants to tolerate an ice water pain challenge for longer than if they had played something a little more sedate like a golf game.
Gaming guinea pigs played both the undisclosed FPS and golf games on separate occasions for 10 minutes and then placed one of their hands in ice-cold water to test their reaction to the pain and sensation normally involved with putting your hand somewhere you normally shouldn't. Surprisingly, participants kept their hands in the icy water on average for 65 per cent longer after playing the FPS, indicating that playing the game increased the participants’ pain tolerance. Also, heart rate was also shown to increase.
The researchers suggest the increased pain tolerance and heart rate can be attributed to what they call the body’s natural ‘fight or flight’ response to stress, which can activate descending pain inhibitory pathways in the brain reducing sensitivity to pain. The study was prompted after the same team performed research into swearing and how that can increase people's pain tolerance.
Leader of the study, Dr Richard Stephens, said: “We assumed that swearing eases pain by sparking an emotional reaction in participants, most likely to be aggression , in turn setting off the body’s fight or flight response. This latest study was a test of that assumption in which we set out to try and raise participants’ aggression levels by having them play a violent video game. We then tested the effect on pain tolerance. The results confirm our predictions that playing the video game increased both feelings of aggression and pain tolerance”.
He went on to say that “Pain researchers have already been exploring the use of virtual reality as a way of helping people better deal with pain. A group in Seattle, USA encouraged children with severe burns to explore a snowy virtual landscape while their dressings were changed. This reduced the amount of pain and discomfort they felt during this procedure”.
The results have been published in the journal Psychological Reports which means it's now a legitimate medical study and that the upside is that gaming may finally be good for you. The downside however is that those annoying kids who swear every 5 seconds on XBLA may now be immune to the bloody good slap that they need.
