As part of its coverage of the American Psychological Association (APA) convention in Boston, courant.com picked up an AP story with a very optimistic look at the effects of videogames on players. In fact, the APA goes so far as to refer to video games as "powerful learning tools."
Researchers gathering in Boston for the American Psychological Association convention detailed a series of studies suggesting that video games can be powerful learning tools -- from increasing the problem solving potential of younger students to improving the suturing skills of laparoscopic surgeons.
Evidence in the report that playing video games improves surgical skills is so strong, surgeons may just want to start listing their playtime experience on their resumes.
The single best predictor of their skills is how much they had played video games in the past and how much they played now," said Iowa State University psychologist Douglas Gentile. "Those were better predictors of surgical skills than years of training and number of surgeries performed," Gentile said. "So the first question you might ask your surgeon is how many of these [surgeries] have you done and the second question is, 'Are you a gamer?'"

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Great to know that gaming is finally recognised for something great instead of all this violence bashing.