Monday, February 15, 2010

Discover Your Brain on Videogames...

When it comes to mainstream media, video games usually get the short end of the stick, at best, and the business end of the stick more often. That's why I was pleasantly surprised to see an article entitled, "This is Your Brain on Video Games" in the Brain Special Issue of Discovery recently.

It's a nice read, and I won't ruin it for anyone, but, in short, it indicates that playing videogames can help to sharpen an individual's brain - not in the "hand-eye coordination" way that we hear as a somewhat frequent retort to the media's latest frenzied attempt to blame anything from violence in our schools and road-rage to terrorism and global warming on our favorite digital passtime, but in what they describe as "mental dexterity" - essentially, playing videogames can help train a person to solve problems. Who knew?

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