Has your parent or guardian ever given you a hard time about playing too many video games? Thanks to the studies of a group of scientists, you can now tell your Mom or Dad that you are in training to be a surgeon! Scientists in New York, USA, recently did some research on surgeons. Were they interested in how much they studied or what kinds of grades they got? Nope! They were interested in how many video games they played and how good they were at those games. Amazing but true! At the end of their research, the scientists discovered that surgeons who were the best at video games were also the best surgeons. What do these finding tell us? Possibly that good surgeons are also good at video games. But it may also tell us that by playing video games, people develop better hand-eye coordination and fine motor (movement) skills. 

How do we know which is answer right? Luckily, another group of scientists in Canada were busy trying to find out how playing video games affected eyesight. What did they discover? They found that after playing video games, people were able to find things quicker when they looked around them. Playing the games helped them develop this skill. How might this help people in their daily lives? It might help them drive better and avoid accidents on the road because they are quicker to see things coming their way. It might help a person read better. It might even strengthen one’s eyesight and vision muscles, so less of this important sense is lost as we get older. And last but not least, playing video games could possibly be used to help surgeons develop better skills!

So be sure to listen to your parents when they tell you to eat right, get lots of sleep, and exercise. But be sure to remind them that some of that exercise includes sitting in front of a computer screen!