Gaming Good For Eyesight

[D_o_S]

A study has found that gamers' contrast sensitivity vision improves when playing FPS games. Contrast sensitivity is the body's response to a change in visionary situations, enabling you for example, to see in the dark or read. Like everything else it degrades in old age, but a new neuroscience study has shown that this may not be the case for avid gamers who enjoy a good gunfight.

According to leading researcher, Professor Daphne Bavelier of Rochester University "This is not a skill that people were supposed to get better at by training. It was something that we corrected for at the level of the optics of the eye – to get better contrast detection you get glasses or laser surgery."

So, after hooking a group of gamers for more than 50 hours on Call of Duty, and another group on an non-violent game, results showed that the vision of those who played Call of Duty had improved by 43 percent. When set against the results of the other group, whose vision failed to improve at all, such a result can no doubt be deemed as statistically significant.

Source: Bit-Tech and Rochester University

[FordGT90Concept]

Yay! +1 for video games. Finally. XD

[Haytch]

I have spent sundown to sunrise and probably most of my day time when not sleeping behind the monitor. Mostly gaming, some work . . .

Over the years i have noticed a significant increase in my observation time which is then converted to movement which has also increased. I too have noticed that my many years has adopted my eyes to be able to view better then the ' average joe ' given the night time variable, but ' average joe ' always wins during the day.

Plain and simple, without my sunglasses on a semi-bright day renders me blind. My eyes sting, and sometimes tear up and go really red, devil red. Someone once suggested i quit the late night gaming, but im waiting for the arthritis in my fingers to kick in properly.

In regards to the article, im not sure i understood correctly. Lets see if i understood . . . They grabbed a bunch of gamers, (Gamer is such a general term, i didnt consider myself a gamer untill i completed my 100th title and cleared 10,000 hours) sat them down for 50 hours and then ran an optical test ? What other games did they use, what was the optical test results, what tests did they perform, was this fps vs rts or something ? Are they saying that these people showed a 43% increase from this specific 50 hour interval ?

I have to say . . . . bullshit . . . I respect the concept, i agree with the possibility, but cant take the statistics seriously. Maybe Professor Daphne Bavelier, would be so kind as to publish his findings.

[mcloughj]

heh i'd call april fools on this except i read about it a couple of days ago!

[gayan]

Hope my parents would love this

[Nicklas_84]

1 april joke!!

[alexp999]

April Fools or not, I believe this is true anyway, my optician told me computer screens arent bad for your eyesight, they can just make your eyes more tired, quicker.

And this was posted on 30th March on Bit-Tech so it could well be legit

[D4S4]

natural body reaction - if you have the need to be better net-predator, the body adapts this way, same works for reflexes

[Mussels]

I used to be long sighted and needed glasses to see anything close to me. Imagine a 10 year old kid with bifocals and you'll get the idea.

Leaning up close to my 15" CRT and playing unreal tournament 32 hours a day solved that alright.

[Triprift]

32 hours a day wth

Its also good for migranes.

[alexp999]

I know when I have been on the forums too long when I can still see lines of text when I look away from the screen

But seriously, staring at a screen all my life has done me no harm

[Millenia]

Yeah playing FPS games for almost 18 years has certainly helped my observation, I can usually notice even the smallest movement even when it's almost out of range :P

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Millenia

Yeah playing FPS games for almost 18 years has certainly helped my observation, I can usually notice even the smallest movement even when it's almost out of range :P

the other night i woke up thinking zombies were attacking the house, so i ripped the blinds off my window, rolled them up and charged outside to fight them.

Turns out it was just two cats Fu*#ing the living sh~# out of each other outside my window.

Two observations:
1. 10 hour left 4 dead marathons before bed arent such a great idea.
2. I'm rather stupid when half asleep.

P.S my blinds dont work no more.

Im not sure how that relates to eyesight, but gaming has its downsides.

[MRCL]

Originally Posted by Nicklas_84

1 april joke!!

It was in the newspapers here two days ago, so not a joke

[Weer]

Originally Posted by Mussels

P.S my blinds dont work no more.

Who's got a pair of binoculars and a night off?

[PVTCaboose1337]

Staring at an LCD in the dark is bad for the eyes. Cause of this I had to get glasses. Too bad, I would do it all again.

Now the benefits of gaming? You are much more alert, your reflexes increase, etc.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by PVTCaboose1337

Staring at an LCD in the dark is bad for the eyes. Cause of this I had to get glasses. Too bad, I would do it all again.

Now the benefits of gaming? You are much more alert, your reflexes increase, etc.

dark? dude, get a bigger screen. my screen *IS* the light source!

[alexp999]

Computer Screens dont give you glasses, its hereditary. All compter screens do is make your eyes tire faster.

[DaveK]

I can believe the increased reflexes and possibly helping your brain by thinking and so on, but I call BS on the eye sight thing. I need glasses as things at a distance for me are blurry though I can still make them out. I've been a gamer for about 10 years or so, and before that was a casual gamer since I was like 3.

From 3 to about 7 I was just doing light gaming, CRT TV, then I got into gaming as a when I was about 7, using a CRT TV until I was 15. Now I use an LCD and when going back to CRT it hurts my eyes lol. I game anywhere from 30 minutes to a full 24 hours with some short breaks in between, lights on and lights off and I still need glasses.

EDIT: A study also found that video games don't lead to violence, they probably don't, but the Law doesn't seem to think so...

[Weer]

Originally Posted by alexp999

Computer Screens dont give you glasses, its hereditary. All compter screens do is make your eyes tire faster.

You can't say that looking straight into a 50hz or under CRT for years won't completely ruin your eyes.

[ShadowFold]

Gotta be a joke. My eyes SUCK and I've played video games since I was 4..

[Weer]

Originally Posted by Mussels

dark? dude, get a bigger screen. my screen *IS* the light source!

You mean your 40"? You can't even get 2 feet close to that thing at a resolution of 768p.

[AsRock]

Could well be true, I've been a heavy gamer since around 1983. What makes me think it might be true is when i was 13-14 the school recommended glasses for me which i never used by time i went though collage and had my eyes and was having a terrible time with refresh rates ( flickering they decided i should have my eye's tested and came back better than average.

My eyes are just sensitive to low refresh rates even 75 with some monitors.

So false or not could it be true or was the school just trying to make a buck . Or even by that time the equipment was better.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Weer

You can't say that looking straight into a 50hz or under CRT for years won't completely ruin your eyes.

no. but if you owned a 50Hz CRT for years, you were a real stingy bastard.

My first CRT, a fishbowl 15" in the early 90's did 800x600 @ 85Hz and 1024x768 @ 70Hz.

edit: oh what happens with the refresh rates is that your eyes/brain learn to adapt and process the information faster. As you spend more and more time looking at a CRT, your eyes get more sensitive to it and you can see higher and higher refresh rates - making the once "seamless" image look like a flickering puddle of piss. I cant stand CRT's below 85Hz, and i can see a difference upto 120Hz. i cant even watch non LCD televisions, havent been able to for years.

Look at a noob PC user - they look at crysis and go WOW.... WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING. CSS players can see a guy in 1/60th of a second and headshot him. its simply training your eyes to see smaller details at higher speeds, and process the information faster into useful data.

[silkstone]

Parents can;t yell at their kids to stop sitting so close to the TV anymore if it's LCD now then, especially if its an action flick.
I don't understand how you can train your eyes to get better, the parts of the brain controlling eye-sight maybe, but the eyes themselves? Maybe it's just that part of the brain that is becoming more sensitive to differences in light levels.

Edit - read the full article. It says fps train the part of the brain that process vision