Video Games are Good For You
A study was released on Wednesday that says that playing video games is actually good for your eyesight.
From Reuters: “Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information,” Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, said in the study published on the university’s Web site, www.rochester.edu, on Tuesday.
“These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it. That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life.”
They go on to describe the test in the same article: “Test subjects were given an eye test similar to the one used at regular eye clinics and then divided into two groups — one played shoot-em-up action games for an hour a day while the control group played a less visually complex game.
Their vision was tested after the study, with those who played the action game scoring better in the eye test.
The researchers said their findings could help patients with several types of visual defects.“
I hope those ‘several types of visual defects’ include geriatric myopia. I know I’m not that old yet, but if you believe the video game marketing people I’m well beyond my prime, and well beyond their ‘core’ target group. Therefore, I’m old. And when you get old, things start to fall apart. Usually, one of the first is your eyesight.
But, with this recent study, maybe my playing video games will let me keep from having to buy those bifocals like my dad wears until I’m well into my 80s. Shoot, with the way I game, maybe they can harvest my eyes after I’m finished with them and give them to some other whipper-snapper. I think I’ll change my will to say that the person who gets them has to play at least two hours of video games a day. That way, they can just pass them on to the next person when they are finished.
Talk about a legacy!
Filed under: Real Research
