A recent Rochester study, as published by CNN, states that 16 men between the ages of 18 and 23 took a series of tests that relied on video screens to test visual aptitude. As it turns out, the men who had played videogames regularly in the past 6 months tested consistantly higher than those who hadn't.

Now, this isn't proof positive that video-games aren't mindless, as the CNN article attempts to claim, since the tests only involved the ability to locate the position of a blinking object, count the number of simultaneous objects on a screen or pick out the color of an alphabet letter. These aren't necessarily life-changing skills we're talking about, but they are a measurable quantity for test purposes.

What the article boils down to is that videogames are at the very least an effective tool for training better soldiers.

Hopefully someone will do a study on other (social, problem solving, etc.) aspects of gaming and how they apply to real-world situations.