'Violent Video Games' a Leaning Tool but Girls Can't Play

Fancy a game of Call of Duty? You might gain more than just the social interaction with friends - playing 'violent' video games can actually improve your vision and other brain functions. That's according to research being presented at a New York University conference on games as a learning tool.

Daphne Bavelier, an assistant professor in the department of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester (whew), presented the findings during a lecture titled Games For Learning. "People that play these fast-paced games have better vision, better attention and better cognition."

"We are testing this hypothesis that when you play an action video game, what you do is you learn to better allocate your resources. In a sense you learn to learn. ... You become very good at adapting to whatever is asked of you," she added, predicting that in a generation's time we'll be using games as part of school curriculums.

The research - found here with games for you to participate in, if you feel so inclined - was, overall, a very positive outlook on the uses of games. Hooray! There was even a panellist from the Institute for Defence Analyses called J. Dexter Fletcher. You couldn't make it up.

What dragged the positivity down a notch was the insane sexism that Bavelier spouted in response to calls that violent video games cause negative effects.

"As you know, most of us females just hate those action video games," she said. "You don't have to use shooting. You can use, for example, a princess which has a magic wand and whenever she touches something, it turns into a butterfly and sparkles."

Fabulous! While us Yorkies are playing Just Cause 2, Duke Nukem and No More Heroes, those 'females' can go over there to play Nintendogs and Barbie's Horse Adventure. Sound like a sweet deal? Speak your mind in the comments box below.