10 Surprising Ways Video Games Are Actually Good For You

4. Improve Your Eyesight

One of the most prevalent myths about video games is that excessive playing can damage your eyes and make your vision worse. For those of you who spent half of their gaming life trying to ignore people saying this to you, rest easy. In 2009, scientists from the University of Rochester compared the vision of expert action gamers playing shooting titles like Call of Duty compared to less experienced action gamers playing The Sims 2. Those playing the first person shooters found that their ability to distinguish subtle changes in the brightness of an image had improved, a skill the researchers relate to tasks like driving at night. Searching and aiming are key skills required in first-person shooters and the evidence here suggests that these processes may actually exercise gamers eyes, demonstrating the potential of video games to help improve failing eyesight. While this is an avenue optical researchers will undoubtedly pursue further in the future, a world where opticians are replaced by Halo tournaments is still some way off at present.