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SINGAPORE, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - Video game addicts, rejoice: U.S. researchers have found that playing is actually good for your eyes, and despite all those dire warnings from your parents, it won't make you blind.
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A study by the University of Rochester showed that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved their vision by about 20 percent.
"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."
Bavelier and a graduate student tested college students who had played very few, if any, video games in the last year.
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.
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A study by the University of Rochester showed that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved their vision by about 20 percent.
"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."
Bavelier and a graduate student tested college students who had played very few, if any, video games in the last year.
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.
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