Joshua Graf:

Dec 12 2012: The brain remains plastic throughout life. The more that specific faculties of the brain are employed, the more of the brain is used to do work in these areas, which in turn forms more new pathways and connections with the purpose of aiding these particular functions of the brain. We’ve all heard statistics like this: an average person can remember 7-10 items on a list; but an experienced waitress can remember twice as many. This idea is far older than neuroscience, though: the more you do something, the better you get at it. “Practice makes perfect,” etc.

Unfortunately, while the brain constantly evolves itself to perform particular functions better, it does this by letting other functions atrophy and wither. Unused mental faculties will deteriorate over time.

Of course playing video games will improve various brain functions which are related to performance of the game – that should be very obvious. It should also be obvious that time spent playing video games is not spent improving other unrelated functions, from those related to empathy, to math skills, writing skills…

A child playing FPS games will likely turn into a better driver than the child who spends his time reading Shakespeare and never playing games. The child reading Shakespeare is acquiring different advantages all the while, though.

The only meaningful questions in my mind come along these lines…
-Are certain brain functions more important or useful than others?
-Would it be worthwhile specifically targeting these for improvement?
-Should each individual choose how to spend his time, or should society be allowed to steer people toward specific activities, in order to improve ability?
-Do video games offer significant improvement in ability relative to other sources of practice, such as driving or playing sports?

and…
-Is there any way to reliably keep gamers from becoming inconsiderate dunces?
See, I still play a lot of CS 1.6, but I tell ya, some of these guys I play with…