I remember reading somewhere that in comparisons of IQ tests of now and 30 years ago, everything was flat or declining except for spatial imagination, which improved significantly. I think the credit should go to gaming.

"Video games are good because they teach us to be better at video games."

Just like basketball is good because it makes us better basketball players. When I see the young generation voting at about 70% or above, and voting intelligently, I will concede that their generation is a smart one. Until then, gee, they sure do play video games well.

    The last video game I even tried to play in was Pac-Man, which may be older than Matt.  Catch the rest of you out behind the dog track.  With any luck, I won't be drooling into my goatee.

I have nothing against video games.  I like them quite a lot.  Matt's argument for their value, however, was this:

The way I'm really sure video games make you smarter is that after not playing any from roughly 1998-2005 I now find that all the games I try and [sic; I think Matt means "are" rather than "and"] way too complicated and difficult and I just give up and go back to doing something easy like reading books or blogging.

All this proves is that practicing anything keeps you in step with that activity's progress better than those who got out of practice.  When I quit skateboarding for various reasons, HOLY SHIT did those fourteen-year-olds get good at it with a quickness.  If I told you that this phenomenon illustrated skateboarding's importance as a learning activity, you would rightfully think I wasn't thinking very carefully.

Believe it or not, video games are essentrial today. I work in an area where raw data is manipulated into computer generated "visuals" that allows the "players" to review their tactics. By playing on-line games, one develops a sense of what needs to be done via keyboard and mouse as well and setting up specific short-cut functions that can do multi-functions/tasks with a single push of a button. You have to be quick and johnny-on-the-spot to anticipate requests and perform the necesary steps to give the "players" the view and angles at the precise time and location for their analysis of tactics employed. Been working this since the early 80's and things are getting faster every year. More tasks can be accomplished and more software control over the data. Some of what I have heard and seen are truely science-fiction. Without that improved eye-and-hand coordination developed from playing computer games, they'd be all thumbs with this new technology.

I forgot to mention this. Add voice to that eye-and-and coordination. It's coming faster that one can imagine.

The SAT scale is periodically rescaled so the median score remains 100 (the last rescaling was in 2001).

IIsn't the Flynn Effect about how IQs are gradually rising over time? So if you look at raw scores, the trendline can be flat AND people could be getting smarter.