What gives multiplayer online games the edge?
Syracuse University psychology professor Joshua Smyth recently divided 100 students into four groups. One got tokens to play at a local arcade, a second group played Gauntlet: Dark Legacy on a PS2, a third played Diablo II on a PC, and the fourth played Dark Age of Camelot, the only game that involves online interaction with someone else.
The last group played more than twice as much as the next most avid group. They also reported lower overall health, mostly because they lost sleep. But there were also favorable advantages. They had more fun, and made more friends.
FMI: MMORPG blog