Video Games Make Kids Smarter:

Oh now really? :

Playing video games sharpens vision, as well as the mind.

Daphne Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester, conducted 20 studies on the effects of video games on young people. She found that gamers fare better than non-gamers on tests of attention, cognition and multitasking.

To make sure this discrepancy doesn't arise because kids who are already above average in these skills are more drawn to video games, Bavelier ran tests in which she immersed non-gamers in a few weeks of video game training.

Not only did this improve the non-gamers' test results in the aforementioned categories, but their improved vision took hold up to two years — even if they didn't continue to play video games after their training