Video games have a bad reputation among adults, from those parents alarmed at their kids’ addictive habits to academics who have studied their risks and harmful effects. But gaming is not all bad.

“Video gamers …  exhibited more advanced attentional skills than non-players,” says Michael Frank Matern, the first author of a recent study published online in the SA Journal of Psychology. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0081246319871391)

The research, involving about 80 university students, found playing video games improved their “visual selective attention”, a skill that can facilitate tasks such as driving...