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In fact, results from the ONR study show that video game players perform 10 percent to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than non-game players.

As Dr. Ezriel Kornel explains on WebMD.com, playing certain video games (e.g. Brain Age or Guitar Hero) can also improve hand-eye coordination, enhance split-second decision making and even, potentially, boost auditory perception.

A study published in the February edition of Archives of Surgery says that surgeons who regularly play video games are generally more skilled at performing laparoscopic surgery.

Besides offering medical students the ability to practice on patients (which is much safer in the digital world), simulations offer health care providers several upsides. Chief among them, Taekman says, are the abilities to make choices, see results and apply information immediately.

According to studies by Daphne Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, video gamers show real-world improvements on tests of attention, accuracy, vision and multitasking after playing certain titles.

In a series of experiments published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that participants who had just played a “pro-social” game in which characters must work together to help each other out as compared to those who had just played a “neutral” game (e.g. Tetris) were more likely to engage in helpful behaviors. Examples included assisting in a situation involving an abusive boyfriend, picking up a box of pencils or even volunteering to participate in more research.

The Internet has become so pervasive that to be truly literate in 2006 demands some degree of technological fluency or at least familiarity. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 73% of American adults had used the Internet or e-mail as of March 2006. For the first time, the National Association of Adult Literacy—the most wide-ranging U.S. study of literacy—will test computer literacy in its 2008 survey that measures overall literacy. With such a large proportion of reading and writing taking place on the Internet, literacy has changed from a solitary pursuit into a collective one.

“You aren’t just a consumer of text anymore,” says Margaret Mackey, a professor at the University of Alberta’s Library and Information Studies Department. Reading now demands an almost instantaneous response, whether through commenting on a blog or writing a review on Amazon . The Internet has shortened the feedback loop on writing and has made readers more active participants, says Matt Kirschenbaum, an assistant professor of English at the University of Maryland. “Reading is more intimately associated with writing,” he says.

This was not how it was supposed to have turned out. A number of studies have been released that suggested a negative correlation between Internet use and reading. Fortunately, those studies are now considered to have been unduly alarmist, according to several experts in the field. In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts released a study titled “Reading at Risk” (the data was collected in 2002), saying that fewer than half of American adults read literature. “To lose this human capacity–and all the diverse benefits it fosters–impoverishes both cultural and civic life,” said the foundation chair Dana Gioia when the survey was released. The study failed to take into account whether people are actually reading more non-fiction works now.

Indeed, despite fears that the Internet would stunt the reading of books, the sale of books has continued to trend upward over the past several years. In 2005, sales jumped 9.9%, to $25 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers.