World of Warcraft Boosts Social Skills

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah! World of Warcraft is good for us. Or so says new Swedish research.

http://www.thelocal.se/33342/20110421/

Lok'tar! Still, I find this very hard to believe.

Depends on the KIND of social skills.
It can definitely wrake havoc on interpersonal relationships that involve face to face contact. It can make a person so sedentary that moving around "in the real world" seems like an alien activity....granted I understand that there is teamwork and other levels of social interaction within the context of the game and in theory, that could possibly carry over to the "Real world" for some people...but in general...I doubt it.

I've never played WOW or any other multiplayer interactive games so I guess I'm boned.

Great reaction under the article, it's a skinner box.

Oe! more goodies about that here:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5- ... icted.html

No it doesn't. If anything, many WoW is the main reason why I'm so antisocial and slightly disturbed.

Clearly, the report writer has never spent time in Trade Chat.

Clearly he never spent time in General Chat.
Only reason we survive mmorpgs as an aspie is because we aren't part of the drama that happens; it happens around us as the other members excel it further and further. Except when they lay the drama directly upon you over "guild-hours". I'm back to playing on my own time with video game consoles!

While I do act more confident in mmos, it has yet to build confidence in me out of mmos.

I would disagree. If you join a guild and have a role in leading the guild you learn management and problem solving skills. That is not social skills. I guess you could go out and talk to other people about WoW. However socialising is this abstract thing where you talk about "stuff" and talking about online gaming isn't what "socially adept" people would talk about. Talking about WoW could work but that is a fairly narrow topic of discussion.

EDIT: heh as the above post points out- the good socialisers are usually the ones involved with guild drama
I remember guild drama a few times, I was like "wow I didn't know that. For a while? I had no idea." and had this obliviousness to it until I was told :O

Played it for 3 years then got bored...

I think I agree, wow is a pretty social game despite the negative comments so far. I mean, wow is a multiplayer game! Sure there are plenty of things to do that you can do alone but the game FORCES you to make connections if you want to take even 1 step beyond that.

Also, compare the way most internet interactions are. Forums are an interesting way to communicate but they're pretty impersonal, you post your message and then come back later and there are replies. With wow you're actually working with people and you have things to do where everyone is working together, in the same virtual environment. You can make friends with the people that are attracted to the same sides of the game that you are and you even have day to day activities that you can do with those friends, maintaining them in a fun way when otherwise you'd probably have nothing to communicate with them about.



I certainly wouldn't have multiple people greeting me as i came online without wow, and I'd never get it in real life either. That's pretty social from what i can see and a huge ramp up on my usual. I could even say that it's managed to accustom me to a higher than I'm used to amount of social interaction and so is even helping me in rl.

I started playing an MMO called Mortal Online (it's really awesome And in this game especially you are pretty much forced to talk to other people if you want to do anything at all) about 5 days ago, and already I've made a friend on it that I talk to regularly and play with. Playing multiplayer games is one of the few chances I get to talk to people, and I am a lot better socializing that way, and get better at it too.

And like TechnoMonk said, it's much easier for me to talk to someone when we have a common interest, and while playing the game there's almost always something to talk about, and you don't have to worry about the conversation dying, since you're doing other things of course. Although I think my social problems are more related to my social anxiety than AS.

I agree with some of the article's ideas, to include some of the leadership responsibilites, because when raid/party leading or managing a guild/team, you are trying to get a group of people to unite for a common goal or collective, managing personnel, and maximizing the skills of the people you work around/with.

As far as social goes, my Aspie-ness even at times sprads to there, because I've been on vent, mumble, in parties, or even raids, and without even realizing it, sometimes I offend people. Where most people keep their mouths shut, I say what I feel. Or when asked something, i spend so much time explaining things or word things in such a manner that it offends people or I come off as being an elitist.

In other aspects, for me anyways, it's an "Aspie heaven" of sorts, because of the fact that once I started taking end game raiding and running heroics/instances seriously, my skills as an Aspie came out largely because of the fact I can memorize facts, numbers, and apply what I've read on various sites in the game and accomplish an immense amount of stuff.

For me, WoW is very hit or miss.

Randy

this is full of crap, all wow ever did to me was ruin 2 years of my life, i was just as i was in real life on the game, i had to keep telling myself all the other characters running around were just ai to avoid losing my santity, even in the game i kept to myself and never talked like in real life.

Perhaps it improves social skills more than playing a offline single player game or sitting in the basement doing absolutely nothing. But actually going out and meeting people is by far the best way to improve social skills.