Pretty much anyone who dabbled in first person shooters (or video games as a whole) is well aware of the bad rap they get. The worst is how they are often cited as the root cause of heinous actions, primarily among sensationalist media.
Thankfully some cooler heads are prevailing, like Dr. Lorenza Colzato of Leiden University. Who actually decided to see if there were any positives to FPSs. Turns out, her research did pinpoint one intriguing benefit: improved memory:
The gist is how first person shooters help to develop "an adaptive mind". To monitor very fast bits of info, both visual and auditory, and then to immediately act upon said stimuli.
To test this theory, Dr. Colzato and her team performed a test among two different groups of subjects: those who played at least five hours of games of week (presumably first person shooters, even though it was never implicitly stated) and those who did not.
According the results, those who played games outperformed those who did not. The belief is that gaming trains the mind to be "more flexible" when it comes to paying attention to new bits of info, and also retaining it. Which, again, is highly essential when playing games.
Again, it's nice whenever authorities of some kind do not demonize video games. Though there is little question that some folks might try to take advantage of said info. In particular, kids who feel that getting in an extra game of Call of Duty will help them ace the next day's test in school. Sorry kids, it doesn't work like that.
