The video game industry is one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment today. With growth percentages far surpassing those of the movie and television markets, its no wonder there has been an ongoing campaign to discredit video games for years. We’ve all heard the negative aspects of video games. They cause kids to be overweight, lazy, and mindless. Video game violence is nothing more than training for serial killers and causes players to become indifferent and therefore more violent themselves. The same arguments, made against television 20 years ago, continue on and on.

But recent studies, from multiple, independent sources, are beginning to paint a vastly different picture of video games. While no one is suggesting that it is healthy or beneficial to play video games for 6 to 8 hours per day or more, evidence exists that shows there are many benefits to playing video games for an hour or two per day. In an article on msnbc (click here to read the article) studies show that those that played video games in moderation excelled in tasks requiring team play and in superior judgment in careful risk taking. And in a separate article on Yahoo (click here to read the article) studies show that video gamers have certain increased visual skills from the video games training the brain to process information quicker than normal.

Whether the results from these studies are enough to sway video game opponents’ opinions is yet to be seen. But the facts are the facts and cannot be ignored.  Any form of entertainment if allowed to become all consuming is unhealthy.  Moderation, just like with television or music or movies, is the key.