World of Warcraft Boosts Cognitive Functioning in Adults
Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that playing World of Warcraft (WoW) actually boosts cognitive functioning in older adults, especially those who had poor cognitive ability before playing. The researchers choose WoW because it is a “cognitively challenging game in a socially interactive environment that presents users with novel situations.” They also found that the overall improvement of someone’s cognitive abilities depended on their “baseline cognitive functioning level.” In the study two groups of participants ages 60-77 had their cognitive abilities tested and then where sent home for two weeks, one group played around fourteen hours of WoW each and the other group did not. The group that played WoW showed a much greater increase in cognitive ability compared to the group that did not. Also “those people who needed it most – those who performed the worst on the initial testing – saw the most improvement.”
HA!!! I have been saying that playing WoW is good for you but I meant emotionally not cognitively but I was still right. This means that all those nerds who play WoW now, like me, will be able to think better when we get old, or maybe even right now, which would be nice. This could lead to more people playing WoW and similar games.
Credited this for week 7, need to do another for week 8
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