Video Games Increase Eyesight

[iggy880]

So, unlike my brother's opinion, I do not have glasses and poor eyesight due to video games, its hereditary.

Researchers from the University of Rochester have found out that playing video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can improve your vision by about 20 percent.

One group played a game with no visual complexity, Tetris, and the other group played a blink-and-you’re-dead game, Unreal Tournament. Each group played the game an hour a day.

Then, the researchers put the individuals under a visual acuity test where the students had to quickly identify the orientation of a certain symbol within a crowd of symbols placed to fool the eye and make the recognition harder.

The students that played Unreal Tournament could tell which symbol was pointing in the right direction much more easily than a month earlier and also better than the student that played Tetris, who showed no improvement after a month.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/12734/Play-Unreal-Tournament-Improve-Your-Vision-by-20/

While Tetris can be a blink and you're dead(at a certain level) I get their point, so CoH(at times at least) could probably count, and most of us at least occasionally play the fast paced stuff.

[Emerald Sky]

If this is true then how come I can't see shit...lol.

Seriously, very interesting study. So if I play games enough, it should cancel out my piss-poor genes I got from my parents that caused my poor eyesight? Right ;)

[Apollinaris]

Let's be honest. CoH is getting nowhere /close/ to "counting".

[Poison]

I have 180% sight effectivity (I can see details better than the average). Too bad I'm strongly shortsighted.

[MajorMarvel]

I'm sorry but I dont believe this.
Why? my Eyesight is TERRIBLE. I'm talking if I didnt pay extra for extra thin classes, they would be pretty thick.

[sheld0n]

There was once an experiment done on a flea. The scientist tore off the flea's legs one by one and told it to jump. He tore one leg off, "jump!" - the flea jumped. He tore the second leg off, "jump!" - the flea jumped.
The situation kept repeating itself until all the legs were torn off. After the last leg, he demanded that the flea jumps once more. "Jump!" - nothing. "Jump!" - nothing.
Conclusion: After having its legs torn off, the flea lost hearing.

As for this experiment, I seriously doubt that games increase eyesight. Observance? Sure. But not eyesight. To make sure of that, they should have used the Snellen Eye Chart instead of coming up with some fancy detection tests.

[Kid Ferret_]

I have excellent eye sight, only one in my family that doesn't wear glasses. The only thing is I am color blind, just can't win.

[Jade_Dragon]

Oddly enough, my mother has been saying recently that Tetris makes her eyes water. She doesn't have that problem with any of the other games on her DS, only Tetris. I assume it's because her eyes have to constantly track the downward movement, and for some reason that's a strain for her, but it's still kind of wierd.

[coldcut]

My eyes take awhile to adjust to distances if I've been staring at the computer for awhile. I can't imagine that it's doing anything positive for them.

[iggy880]

I'm sorry but I dont believe this.
Why? my Eyesight is TERRIBLE. I'm talking if I didnt pay extra for extra thin classes, they would be pretty thick.

I'm near sighted like my mother, and my Dad couldn't read close up without his glasses if he had say read the difference between a poison and its antidote quickly(thickest/biggest glasses I've seen on a person under 70 :P ) so I'm screwed technically. But what is important is while it may be observance, observance is still a part of sight, and in the fast paced games which they proved help, things like tracking a guy long range who is like a dot, or distinguishing things like is he on you team, are integral parts of sight. I mean, the ability to distinguish like that is pretty much what the sight test is, distinguishing between different characters.

[Xielos]

Oddly enough, my mother has been saying recently that Tetris makes her eyes water. She doesn't have that problem with any of the other games on her DS, only Tetris. I assume it's because her eyes have to constantly track the downward movement, and for some reason that's a strain for her, but it's still kind of wierd.

Tell her to blink more. Same thing happens to me with Guitar Hero, you don't realise you aren't blinking and your eyes water and BURN.

[Gold Rush]

I have great eyes and can see far (even eye doctors comment on it), but nowadays, I do stare at the TV/computer too much and like coldcut, I sense my eyes aren't as sharp as they should be. I should try to exercise them more, but that is more a personally theory of mine; execising meaning adjust to viewing things near and far on a daily basis.

I can say video games probably HAVE improved my peripheral vision. I can see things on my sides pretty well. Strangely, I think the older style fast-paced arcade games help out with this more than most other modern games. I am sure there may be current ones that may help, perhaps RTS maps, but darn if I can think of any.

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Gold Rush