Video Games Boost Visual Skills

cmburns69 writes "A new study published in Nature Magazine (MSNBC summary) suggests that playing action games improves visual skills. Among other things, young adults who played action games such as Grand Theft Auto and Medal of Honor regularly could track up to five objects at a time - 30% more than non-players. Apparently, the game type is important, as ten hours of the block-rotating game Tetris failed to improve test scores."

Comments

Re:nothing but pratfalls

[ackthpt]

I've been playing video games my entire life, and yet I've had 5 automobile accidents, countless number of knife mishaps and I am probably up for "most likely to be on 'America's Funniest Home Videos'".

I had lots of accidents when I was younger, but many of them because I was an aggressive driver. One potential problem (note: this is anecdotal) is games may have reinforced a very competitive personality. I.e. those things within my control I'll push to the limit to win, those outside my control I'll just swear at. Solution to the aggressive driving thing, get a vehicle with little pep and decent gas mileage. Patience is a virtue, especially as it keeps you out of many accidents and lowers the points on your record.

so we all know what this means, I need to play even MORE video games, or less Grand Theft Auto.

Delving into the actual study may reveal it's games which encourage good on-the-fly plan developing and limited time spent on it and a good diet (the study center only fed the subjects healthy food.) I know when I was seriously hooked on games I'd skip food until my bloodsugar made me twitchy.

I have experienced the opposite

[CrazyJim0]

I learned two things from video games:

Strategy and reflexes, both help my driving.

Aside from one incident where I almost rammed someone's car after playing too much destruction derby, I am a wicked driver.

I've physically dodged some wild accidents, and once I powerslided to dodge an accident... Since my car is shorter perpendicular to the road as opposed to straight on it, I avoided an accident by a few inches... People who don't use their turn signal are asking for it.

Mainly I avoid accidents by putting a ton of car lengths ahead of me... Sure aggressive drivers can juke in, but those fuckers are just as likely to juke out too. All that dodging is not a sign of a good driver, just a retard.