Playing video games = better brain

Ah, Oregon Trail... where famine, learning and video games meet.

I remember reading several years ago a magazine article that talked about how children who play video games were better off up top. Gamers were said to be better at problem solving and had better hand-eye coordination compared to those who didn't play video games. And while I hadn't seen any articles on the subject since the original Super Mario Bros. ruled the gaming world, a recent piece in USA Today brought the topic back to life.

A recent article in USA Today says today's gamer could end up being one of the world's next great surgeons.

See, this news has been divided by a wall. Somewhere in the middle, it seems stories on how video games benefit children were replaced with stories on how video games corrupt children and make them more prone to violence. Stories on how Super Mario Bros. made us better students was replaced by how Grand Theft Auto made us shoot up our school. It's your classic case of the negative getting more attention than the positive.

Remember back when there were video games actually developed primarily for learning? I don't mean getting smarter by jumping on Koopas or Goombas, I mean a game that was meant to teach you something. The best one that comes to mind is Oregon Trail, a computer game where you led a stagecoach out west to Oregon. The idea of the game was simple: Don't let all your people and animals die. But the fact you had to hunt and earn your way down the trail while making decisions critical to your survival made it a learning experience. And the game was so much fun you never realized you were actually learning something in the process.

Thanks to the folks at Nintendo, the availability of learning games still exists. Games like Brain Age, Big Brain Academy and Flash Focus help stimulate your brain cells. And just like 20 years ago, many video games today force you to use critical-thinking skills. So it's not that video games stopped making us smarter, the fact they do just got lost in the mix for a while.